


Growing Up Sucks

by MoonSilverSprite



Series: Growing Up Sucks [2]
Category: Time Warp Trio (Cartoon)
Genre: Adventure, Archaeology, Canada, Family, Ghosts, Historical Accuracy, Italy, Magic, Mystery, Possession, Renaissance Era, Time Travel, Wild West
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-11-15 18:17:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18078566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonSilverSprite/pseuds/MoonSilverSprite
Summary: Snippets of the Time Warp Trio at random points over a two-year period between 2006 and 2008. Some of these are just short instances of the boys by themselves, some are adventures through time. However, an overarching theme will begin to emerge soon enough.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Bookkeeper_96](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Bookkeeper_96/gifts), [cbraxs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cbraxs/gifts), [Turchinorain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turchinorain/gifts).



> While the chapters take place, for the boys, between September 2006 and January 2008, and the sequel to this will take place around January 2013, they won't be told in chronological order unless stated. For instance, the first chapter takes place in February 2007, after Joe and Fred return from the Tower of London, while the second takes place in September 2006, two months after Joe became a Time Page.
> 
> I'll try my best not to make these snippets sound like meaningless rambles, akin to _Family Guy_ cutaways. (Good grief, why was _that_ show uncancelled?) I sincerely hope that you enjoy this all the same.
> 
> In case you're wondering, Faith will return and she'll be of some importance to Fred. But I'm not giving away anything...

**8th February 2007**

Sam groaned as he turned over in bed. His mother felt his forehead with her hand before she turned to Fred and Joe.

“He’s not burning up, boys,” she explained, “but please be careful.”

“What does he have?” Fred asked, concerned.

She shook her head. “I’m not really sure. He just seemed a bit floppy earlier.” When she left, the boys sat on Sam’s bed as he tried sitting up.

“Sam, how are you?” Joe tried to comfort him. Sam just glared back.

“I feel rubbish. I was at the library when my vision started to go blurry. Mom took me for an eye test, but they couldn’t find anything wrong.”

“You are feeling okay now?” Fred asked him. Sam nodded, pushing his glasses up.

“Sorry I missed school,” he murmured, “I always miss history.”

“Don’t be,” Joe rolled his eyes, “we had a pop quiz on medieval history.”

“And apparently, I can’t put the real reason what happened to the Princes in the Tower.” Fred scoffed.

“Oh, yeah,” Sam glanced at him, “you said that Prince Richard is your great-grandfather.”

“Which technically makes me royalty.” Fred rested his hands behind his head and lent down on the duvet beside Sam. Sam didn’t react much. He seemed completely fine with this.

Joe told Sam, “He’s been a bit of a big-head about it –“ he only stopped when Fred playfully flung a cushion from the floor at him, “He's made me call him ‘Your Highness’.”

“Well, it’s the truth,” Fred replied, matter-of-factly, “Freddi isn’t playing up, Sam, because she’s further down the line, but since my great-grandfather was a prince, that actually makes me royalty.”

“The Princes were declared bastards,” Sam pointed out, much to Fred’s disappointment, “which wouldn’t have put you in line for anything. And even though Henry VII reversed this so he could marry their sister, the fact that your mom and dad weren’t married yet when they had you would have the same effect, anyway. If you want to be picky, your name would have been Fred Fitzroy.”

Fred was already bored of listening to Sam prattle on. He mumbled that he was going to get a video game from downstairs. When he’d left, Sam’s eyes widened.

“Wait,” he murmured, “isn’t Freddi’s name Fitzroy? I saw it on her schoolbag.”

“Oh crud,” Joe slapped a hand to his face, “he really _is_ going to change his name.”

____

 

____

Later, when Sam was in the bathroom, he had finished brushing his teeth when he noticed something.

He wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but it happened just before he spat into the sink. Inside his pupils, for just a fraction of a second, two green pinpricks were visible.

Sam raised his head again, to be sure that he had actually seen this and it wasn’t his imagination. He blinked several times, then squinted at his reflection.

“Wha –“ he began, but then it happened again. Two tiny green circles inside the very centre of his pupils. At the same time, his head felt as if he had been shot out of a cannon. It was throbbing like crazy and rattled inside.

Sam dropped his toothbrush and held his hands on the top of his skull. For a moment, just a moment, he could see something else. Somewhere else. He saw tall stone walls, heard the sound of rattling chains and could even see a photograph in a frame smashed on the floor. Sam couldn’t see what the photograph was of, except that it looked a little like a beach.

Somehow, in his mind’s eye, Sam moved closer to the photograph. The beach was very long, stretching for miles, with white sands and a clear blue ocean. A boy sat on the beach, smiling back at whoever was taking the picture. Oddly, Sam seemed to notice, the boy looked exactly like Joe. There were small differences, as if someone was drawing deliberate mistakes, but it looked just like him.

Then Sam snapped out of whatever had taken a hold of him.

He wasn’t in the bathroom any more. He was in the hallway, holding two parts of his broken toothbrush. Sam gulped and then stuffed the toothbrush at the back of the linen cupboard next to him.

He’d have to talk to Joe about this. Maybe someone at the Time Agency could help.

He didn’t know it at the time, but talking to either would not help one bit.


	2. Chapter 2

**28th September 2006**

“It’s my turn!” Anna whined as she gripped the Book.

“No, Anna, do you want to end up back in Scotland?” Joe argued, “I’m still getting brick dust out of my hair!”

Sam and Fred stood to the side, unsure what to do. Joe had promised to try and find a really good mystery for them, since he thought they might as well do something useful, only to find him and Anna bickering.

“You’re not responsible enough.” Anna complained, letting go of the Book and storming out.

Joe rolled his eyes and groaned, picking up the Book, “Where to?” he asked his friends.

“Err, I think the Book’s chosen for you.” Sam pointed at the green mist seeping out.

Before any of them knew it, they were hurtled through time.

**November 1930**

Sam looked about himself. The dark, cold wilderness was far too scary for him.

“Joe? Fred?” he whispered, rubbing his bare arms. He could see his breath in front of him. He didn’t know how cold it was out here, but he just hoped that they weren’t anywhere too dangerous.

Then again, they did open the Book, so Sam couldn’t say anything right now.

“I’m here!” Joe called from a nearby bush, sticking his arm up and waving it around. Sam rushed over and pulled his friend out, who almost fell on top of him.

“Where’s Fred?” Sam asked.

“Not sure,” Joe replied, “Fred!”

“Fred!” Sam cupped his hands to his mouth, calling out.

Then the sound of beating hooves got louder and louder. Sam and Joe started screaming loudly. They only stopped when the sounds stopped right beside them.

Three men holding lanterns looked down at the terrified boys. The men wore red uniforms and light brown hats.

“They’re Mounties,” Sam whispered to Joe, “this must be Canada.”

One man got off his horse and asked, “What are you doing so far out here, lads? It’s hundreds of miles from the nearest village!”

“We honestly don’t know,” Joe replied, “err, have you seen a book? It’s about this large, has a blue cover with silver squiggles on the front?”

The Mountie shook his head. “Sorry, can’t say that I have.”

Then there was a rustling from the trees behind them. The three Mounties held up rifles, waiting patiently. Then Fred emerged from the trees, twigs in his hair and clothes.

“Fred!” Sam shouted, wrapping his arms around his friend.

“Hey, no need to get touchy,” Fred eased Sam off, smiling.

“Where exactly are you Mounties going?” Sam asked them.

The one who had come off of his horse lowered his rifle. “Lake Anjikuni, son. If you three are out here by yourselves, then I gather you must have had some help getting here. You from Padlei?”

“Yes.” All three nodded, although they weren’t sure why.

The Mountie’s eyebrows flew up. “Padlei Trading Post is the only place you could have come from. And it’s nearly a hundred miles away! Just how did you get up here?”

“Horses. Very bad horses.” Sam said the first thing that came to mind.

“Over a hundred miles?” another Mountie questioned.

The first Mountie whispered back to his colleagues, “They’re either telling the truth or they’re on the run from the law. Now, if they were on the run, they’d either have equipment with them, or they’d be dead. No, I think they’re just three unlucky young boys.” He turned to the three of them and said, “We have to go to a village in Lake Anjikuni first, check if everything’s fine and dandy. We can take you back to the trading post after that.”

The three of them eagerly thanked the Mounties, who each helped a boy onto a horse.

As they were going along, Sam asked the head Mountie, “What exactly is at Lake Anjikuni?”

“Well, lad,” the Mountie sounded both interested and confused, “a fur trapper was up there and said that the local Inuit people who live there – roughly thirty people in total – had completely vanished.”

“Vanished?” Joe felt a chill go through his spine, one not caused by the freezing weather.

The Mountie with him nodded. “Indeed, son. It’s a complete mystery. But, as the Mountie motto says, we never give up. So we have to go and investigate.”

Joe and Fred could see that Sam was gripping tightly onto the head Mountie, eyes wide and teeth chattering. He looked unbelievably frightened, which worried his friends considerably.

The horses stopped walking after about fifteen minutes. The three Mounties got off and tethered them to nearby trees. Sam still sat on his horse, clutching his arms around its neck and hanging on for dear life.

“Sam?” Fred queried, coming up, “What is it?”

“Lake Anjikuni,” Sam gave a low whisper, “The Mounties came because they said someone saw a light in the sky. They found the village –“ he gulped, “ _empty_.”

“Yeah?” Fred raised an eyebrow but he felt anxious as well, “But the Mounties make it back, don’t they? They searched for the Inuit?”

Sam nodded his head. “But some people think that – they think it was _aliens_.”

Joe wondered if Sam was going crazy. “Aliens?”

“I don’t know,” Sam scoffed, “or maybe something to do with time travel; I don’t know. But I don’t want to stick around.”

They eventually managed to pull Sam off the horse. Joe clenched Sam’s wrist tightly as he dragged him to the tents set up by the water’s edge.

It was eerily silent, just as the Mounties said. But it seemed utterly bizarre all the same.

“We’d better look inside the tents,” Fred whispered to Joe, “Try and find the Book.”

Sam shook his head. “Not me!” he squealed.

Fred rolled his eyes. “I guess _I’ll_ look,” he sighed.

He looked in each of the six tents. Inside one of them was a stew which had gone mouldy. A child’s sealskin coat lay on the floor, a needle still embedded inside. In the next tent, food was still piled up. When Fred inspected the fish storehouse, he found that the fish was still there. There were also a few rifles scattered about inside the tents. If something threatening had arrived, wouldn’t the Inuit people have at least tried to defend themselves?

One of the Mounties went up to a campfire. “Trapper said that the food was still cooking on open flames when he came here. Must have gone out now.”

“I – really – want – to get out of here.” Sam grabbed onto Joe. The other boy groaned and tried to push him off.

“My word!” the head Mountie held up his lantern and pointed at a pile of rocks some feet away.

“What is it?” another Mountie called.

“It is not just the living who had vanished from here. The grave has been opened and the body taken!”

The three boys and the other Mounties rushed over to find the grave had been emptied.

“Why would anyone do that?” Fred found himself squeaking.

“You ask me.” The Head Mountie looked about himself.

“But what do we do now?” Joe asked, looking up at the men for help. “Wasn’t there something about a light?”

“Ah, yes,” the third Mountie placed a hand on his chin thoughtfully, “that trapper, Labelle, said that it was in the shape of a cylinder. That it also changed shape in the sky. Whatever it was, he assures that it was not the Northern Lights.”

The second Mountie mused, “The Inuit do have a legend, if I may enter into the world of imagination.”

The other two looked at him with earnest. Fred spoke up. “Go on.”

The second Mountie sighed, gripping onto his hat in his right hand. “The Inuit speak of _Torngarsuk_ , a creature that only their shamans can see. They make sacrifices and chant to keep it away. But that is just ridiculous.”

Joe and Fred shared a worried glance. Who knew what was real if they travelled through time on a regular basis?

Suddenly the air around the two of them seemed a lot colder as they thought about this.

“I must object –“ the head Mountie started to say, but his colleague nearly shouted, “Can you think of any other explanations?”

The third Mountie pointed towards some nearby trees, where some sled dogs were lying on their sides in the ground. He walked over and looked at one of them. “Poor things starved,” he stood up again, “so it’s likely that the villagers left some time ago.”

“But why didn’t they take the dogs?” Fred asked, “They’d need sleds to get through the wilderness.”

“You’re right, boy,” the head Mountie groaned, “Yes, this is a pickle.”

Then they heard Sam shrieking. “I found the Book!” he waved it about like a flag.

Joe and Fred paced over, to see Sam standing by the horses, one of the sled’s reins tied messily around his waist. “It was in the horse’s bag. We need to get out of here.”

“I don’t quite want to go yet,” Fred argued, “I just want to learn what happened here. It’s a mystery.”

“I guess some mysteries, like Amelia Earhart, the Princes in the Tower or King John’s Crown Jewels, you might never discover the answer.” Joe had grabbed the Book and started typing the date in.

“I just want to get out of here!” Sam pulled his friends onto the sled and started slowly dragging them behind him.

“He’s lost it,” Fred narrowed his eyes.

“Goodbye.” Joe waved at the Mounties as the three of them disappeared when the time mist flew out from the Book.

The three Mounties stared at where the boys had stood, mouths agape.

“I – I have no idea how to explain any of this to headquarters.” The head Mountie mumbled. The second Mountie said both a Catholic prayer and an Inuit chant under his breath. The third one tried to work out if the boys they had just seen were actually spirits.

**28th September 2006**

The three of them landed on Joe’s bed. Sam’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates and Fred wondered if he had caught frostbite. Joe placed the Book back in his bedside cabinet and murmured, “How about a movie?”

“Yeah, sure.” Sam and Fred replied in unison.

But they couldn’t help secretly wondering if the missing had travelled through time. If that was the answer, where did they go?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will give away a few clues as to the bigger story arc, but it can also be read as an adventure through war-torn London.
> 
>  
> 
> _Focus on their eyes..._

**10th April 2107**

“Jodie Arthur, Samantha Oakley and Freddi Fitzroy, please come to the front of the class.”

The three girls walked up to the front as Miss Knight leaned back against her metal desk. “Now, girls,” she sighed, “why did you run away during the field trip to the Hudson?”

The girls all glanced at each other awkwardly. They couldn’t exactly tell her that they’d been catapulted back to the French-Indian War.

Jodie slowly coughed, looking up at Miss Knight. “Well, Miss Knight, we – got lost?” she tried.

Miss Knight crossed her arms and sighed. “Miss Arthur, the docks have a map for the groups. How you managed to get lost really is beyond belief. Detention, tomorrow.”

“Miss Knight –“ Freddi started complaining.

“Double detention!” Miss Knight shrieked, her pointed nose inches from the three seventh-graders.

At home, Jodie lay back on her bed, stroking Cleo as she looked up at the ceiling. “It’s not fair!” she grumbled, “Why can’t we ever warp on the weekend? There’s nothing to do around here, anyway.”

There was a slight knock at the door. “Jodie, darling, are you still unhappy?”

“Yes, Dad.” Jodie whined.

“Can I come in, darling?”

“Sure.”

James slowly opened the door to take a look at her. “Jodie,” he sighed as he sat on the end of her bed, “I know it’s tough being eleven. But you have to open up to your mother and me sometimes.”

Jodie rolled over, her head in her pillow. James carried on.

“I heard about warping during school hours. Just try not to take the book to school, okay? That’s how my granddad met you, after all.”

“It was his third trip,” Jodie’s head peeped up, “he just wanted to know how it worked so he took it everywhere.”

James chuckled slightly as his daughter started to sit up in bed, holding the pillow to her chest, as if she were eight years old again. “Oh, yes, honey,” he smiled and when he did, his bristly moustache seemed to smile with him, “I’m sure he told you that.”

“I know you miss him,” Jodie said as he placed an arm around her shoulders, “It’s beyond strange that my great-granddad is my childhood friend.”

“Well, that’s a weird enough cycle,” her father smiled, “You know what, Jodie? A couple of times I hear you and the girls using the Book and I can hear their voices, speaking from a hundred years ago. I just – I freeze up and then I think all sorts of stuff. Half the time I think I’m hearing things.”

“Dad, you are sixty-four,” Jodie teased, causing James to give her a playful punch on the shoulder.

“I know I shouldn’t have to say this, Jodie, but consider yourself lucky. It’s not just because you travel in time; I was only a year older than you when my dad walked out.”

“I know,” Jodie rolled her eyes, “and you had to look after Joe and Grandma while all the other boys went hoverboarding.”

James nodded. “But hard work pays off, honey. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to afford the trip to Antarctica.”

“I’ll keep the Book at home.” Jodie promised her dad.

“Let’s hope you _do_ ,” her dad got up to leave, “We don’t want to have to help you get back from a mammoth stampede.”

“That was _once_ , Dad,” Jodie sniggered as he held the doorknob, “and it was Sam’s idea. I told you that.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” James told her as he shut the door and Jodie went back to holding Cleo.

**12th April 2107**

“Welcome to detention,” Miss Knight drawled as the electric chalk wrote on the board, “stay here for thirty minutes. I will be listening outside.”

Samantha placed her head in her hands and grabbed her pigtails in frustration. Freddi kicked her legs under the desk. Jodie simply appeared bored.

When Miss Knight left the room ten minutes later to go to the toilet, Jodie slyly asked, “Do you girls want to go somewhere else to spend the rest of detention?” She eased the Book out of her schoolbag.

Samantha’s eyes widened. “Jodie! You know what your dad said! And that thing got us into trouble in the first place!”

“Oh don’t be such a worry-wart!” Jodie scoffed, opening the Book. The time mist seeped out and started to suck them in as Samantha muttered, “This – is – a – bad – idea!”

**10th May 1941**

Samantha looked up as the dust about them seemed to disperse.

“Guys, where are we?” she asked, helping Jodie up from the floor.

“Not sure,” Jodie held a hand on her chin, “anyone have a flashlight?”

Freddi felt inside her pocket and pulled one out. But as soon as she switched it on, they heard a voice shouting. “Oi! Put that light out!”

“Sorry!” Freddi called, as she did so. She whispered to the other girls, “This must be the Blitz. I’d guess that we’re in London. Or Coventry or Glasgow. Or somewhere important.”

“Well how do we find the Book?” Jodie pulled some dust from her frizzy mane.

Freddi shrugged. “Can’t be any more frustrating than detention.”

When the three of them had finally found a doorway, after endless minutes of searching in darkness (and Jodie screamed when she found a dead rat), the sun had started to come up.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Jodie had groaned, as she had been doing non-stop, “anyone got a mirror?”

“Do you always think about how you look?” Samantha mumbled as she pulled a handheld mirror from her backpack.

“No,” Jodie replied, wiping grit from her eyebrows, “but we’d stick out if we looked filthy.”

“We’d probably stick out more because we’re kids when almost every child was evacuated.” Freddi said, starting to walk down the street. Jodie and Samantha followed her.

“So how do we find the Book?” Jodie asked. “It’s the middle of a city and more buildings get bombed each day.”

“Not sure,” Samantha’s voice wobbled, “I mean, we do have my pocket watch, but that’s not going to help much.”

Then Jodie pointed ahead of them. “Why is there a Greek temple in front of us?”

Samantha looked over. “That’s the British Museum,” she explained, “We’re in London.”

“You think the Book could be in there?” Freddi asked.

Samantha shrugged. “Not really sure. It could be anywhere.”

“We landed on the same block,” Jodie interjected, “so I’d say that it may be a clue.”

As Freddi walked up towards the building, she asked, “Why are the railings gone?”

“It’s because of the war, miss,” a voice piped up beside her, “all railings have to go. Even Buckingham Palace. Melted down for gunshot.”

Freddi turned. The voice belonged to a boy. A boy only a little older than herself, with scruffy dark brown hair and eyes. He was awfully skinny and his clothes were hanging off him. He had nametags sticking out of his sleeves and on his short trousers.

“What are those?” Freddi found herself asking.

He looked down. “They’re in case we get blown up by a bomb, miss. Don’t you read the papers?”

Freddi squinted down to look, as Jodie and Samantha approached. The name on all of them read _Isaac Herschel_.

“Thanks, Isaac,” Freddi replied, “Sorry, no, we don’t read them. Not in a while, anyway. We’re not from London.”

“I see. You’re Yanks, aren’t you?” he asked, “I could tell straight away.”

The girls went pale. Usually the Book prevented them from sticking out. It caused everyone to see past the strange clothes and sometimes colours.

Isaac explained before any of them could say anything. “That is because I too am new to this country. I am a German Jew.” He looked about himself and whispered to them, “Could you ladies possibly help me with a problem? I need to go into the British Museum after it closes up tonight. I – I need to get something that rightfully belongs to my family. It was shut away in the Museum years ago. I’d ask my friends, but…well, they’re not in this country at present. And I need to do it tonight as I will be evacuated soon.” He chuckled to himself.

“Isaac,” Jodie started to say, “we’re actually looking for a book. It has a blue cover and silver squiggles on –“

“Oh! They placed it inside the Museum this morning!” Isaac jumped up and down with glee. “If I am correct, it will be in the same room.”

The girls cheerfully exchanged looks. “That’s sorted, then!” Jodie chirped up.

Isaac then held out some empty boxes. “You need gas masks. But I can’t help you with that. So you have to pretend. You also need to sign your names in at the front desk when you enter the Museum. If we’re to find what we’re looking for, we should best go now.”

They followed him inside. “Rather good English for a foreign child.” Jodie whispered.

“It’s probably the Book.” Freddi answered.

When they got to the front desk and Isaac had signed his name on a register, the woman had pushed it over to the girls. “Please state your full names.”

Jodie paused, holding the pencil in her hand. Their names weren’t exactly common in 1940s England and if they were caught during the burglary and lost the Book, they’d need to send a message to the Time Agency to say they were in trouble.

As Jodie slipped her hand into Samantha’s pocket and gripped the watch tightly, focusing by breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. If she had done this the right way, then the Time Agency would know where to look.

“Are we done?” the receptionist asked curtly.

“Yes, sure,” Jodie answered, writing down the first name to came to mind. _Peggy Carter_ , she scrawled in the register, before passing it to Samantha and Freddi, offering the pencil and nodding towards the name.

Samantha raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘ _really?_ ’. Freddi smirked back at her friend, before putting down _Elizabeth Olson_. Samantha let out a groan before she neatly wrote _Natasha Romanov_ in tiny letters.

After they passed the register back and walked with Isaac down to the domed library.

“Natasha?” Isaac perked up, “Are you Russian then, miss?”

Samantha nodded. “But I’ve never lived there. I had family there, way back. I don’t know if they’re living there anymore.”

Isaac looked ahead, but carried on talking to her. “Ah, well. I can relate. The Nazis hate the Slavs as much as the Jews.”

Entering the library, the girls glanced around in amazement. The domed ceiling was huge, towering over them.

“It’s beautiful,” Freddi gasped, holding onto a desk to stop herself from falling over backwards.

Isaac nodded. “I have been here a few times. It takes your breath away, doesn’t it?”

“It certainly does.” Jodie murmured.

Then they focused on the task at hand. The girls started looking for the Book, while Isaac started looking for items on a list he pulled out from his gas mask.

The girls asked for help when climbing up the ladders to try and get some help to see what few books were left on the shelves, but when it was time for the Museum to close, Isaac quickly lead the girls underneath some desks.

“The night watchman will come by shortly,” he told them, “and he can’t use a torch.”

“Torch?” Jodie asked.

Freddi elbowed her. “He means flashlight.”

Isaac carried on. “So we will have to move quickly. Place some of the books in your boxes when you select them. We need to move to the South-West Quadrant before 10pm.”

“10pm? What will happen?” Jodie asked.

Isaac only asked, “Does any one of you have a watch?”

Jodie moved her sleeve back. “It’s roughly half six now.” she told them.

Isaac’s eyes widened at Jodie’s twenty-second century watch. “What sort of watch is that?”

“It’s American,” Samantha gabbled, before Jodie could say anything silly, “very expensive.”

Then Isaac’s face slowly broke into a huge smile. “Ladies, do you happen to have a lot of room in your backpacks?”

The girls paused. Their backpacks had been soaked in waters at the Time Agency after an incident involving camping equipment and a Roman temple. They could hold roughly a hundred pounds each and the girls wouldn’t even feel it.

“Technically…” Freddi began, but Isaac seemed overjoyed.

“You can hide a lot of books in there! More than I imagined! Ladies, we must make haste!”

He scrambled out from underneath the desk and ran over to the doors.

“I think you’ve made him happy,” mumbled Freddi.

“Enough about that, I want to find the Book,” Jodie stood up, “it’s bound to be here.”

Leafing through the desks, she started to think to herself. _If I were the space-time continuum shoved inside a book, where would I be?_

Then Freddi squealed from beside the doors. “Guys! It’s right here!” She lifted it from the back of a dusty shelf.

“Let’s see!” Jodie called out, running up. Opening it, she frowned when nothing happened. “I guess we need to help Isaac first.”

When they had gone out of the library, they followed Isaac down the corridor and into the South-West Quadrant. Entering what appeared to be a storeroom, Isaac shut the door and pulled the light switch.

More books, this time in several boxes, lay around them. Isaac grinned like a child in a candy store. “Come on, girls!” he cried, “Take as many as you can!”

Nearly three and a half hours later, the three girls had placed about a thousand books each into the backpacks, lifting down boxes of about ten at a time into the backpacks. Isaac, oddly enough, did not seem to have noticed. He had shoved about twenty smaller books into his box that was supposed to hold his gas mask.

“Isaac, where’s your gas mask?” Freddi asked him as he carefully lowered an antique book into his satchel.

“I don’t have one any more, Elizabeth,” he shook his head sadly, “I left it at home. I am ashamed of myself.”

Then he stood up, groaning as the weight of the books dug hard into his back. “I’d say that we can sneak out of this window. It’s nearly 10pm and we have to be quick.”

“Isaac, you haven’t told us. What’s happening at 10pm?” Jodie barely managed to stand, her legs turning inwards as, even with the technologically-advanced backpack, it felt as if she were lugging around a ton of bricks.

“I can’t say now,” he seemed a little panicked, “but we need to go!”

He opened a small window and gestured to Samantha. “You first. You’re the skinniest.”

After all four of them had exited the window, along with the unbelievably heavy cargo, all made their way slowly out to the streets.

“Where now?” Jodie asked, “Surely your parents are worried about you, Isaac.”

He shook his head. “They are in Amsterdam. I have not seen them for over a year. It does not matter, anyway. The people looking after me, Mister and Misses Marks, think that I spent the night at a friend’s. Boy, they will be cross in the morning when I return after a bombing raid.”

“After a _what_?” Jodie squeaked.

Just then, the air-raid sirens starting wailing. It was a sound that the girls had heard many times in movies and in documentaries, but it was eerie hearing the sound around them.

“Run!” Freddi shouted.

The others didn’t argue with her. The girls followed Isaac to a house nearby, where he knocked on the door frantically.

A tired-looking man answered. “Isaac?” he queried, “What are you –“

“There’s no time, sir,” he gabbled, “My friends and I need to use your shelter!”

The man groaned and let the four of them rush through the house and into a shelter in the back garden, partially buried underneath a vegetable patch.

Inside the iron shelter, it was cold, damp and small. There was little light and it shook every time a bomb landed.

“Beastly bombs!” the man snarled, “Isaac, you are a naughty boy for being up so late! And why are you out with these young girls?”

Isaac blushed a little. “I’m sorry, Mister Grey. We had to do some work at the British Museum.”

“At this hour?” Mr Grey exclaimed. “I’d give you the cane right now if we were in school, mark my words!” Then he looked at the girls. “And why haven’t I seen you before?”

“We’re American.” Samantha replied, flatly.

“Oh, let me introduce them!” Isaac smiled at what was presumably his teacher, “Peggy Carter, Natasha Romanov and Elizabeth Olson.”

“A Russian, eh?” Mr Grey asked, “What are you doing with a Russian?”

“Mister Grey, I am Polish,” Isaac frowned, “Until we weren’t, in any case. Russia’s just a day from my home village by horse.”

“It’s OK,” Samantha gabbled quickly, “I’ve never lived in Russia.”

Mister Grey snorted. “And what of your parents, girls? Are they here? Or are they in America?”

“New York.” Freddi managed to mumble, before the ground around them shook. She gripped tightly onto Jodie’s shirt, causing the girl to groan and roll her eyes.

“It’s going to be a nasty air-raid tonight, I gather,” Mr Grey held his grasshopper-like legs out, taking up quite a lot of the room, “So my apologies if this place seems too small. Only built for a bachelor.”

“Bachelor?” Jodie raised an eyebrow.

“He’s single.” Samantha muttered, annoyed at the entire situation. Then she gritted her teeth and growled into Jodie’s ear, “Why are we stuck in this iron deathtrap when we could be in a stuffy classroom right about now?”

“I don’t know, the Book isn’t working. And get your nose out of my ear.”

**11th May 1941**

When the raid had finished sometime around three in the morning, Mr Grey opened the door. Sleepily, Isaac, Samantha and Freddi exited. Jodie instead ran straight for the bathroom.

“You could have used the bucket!” Freddi cried after her.

Isaac walked inside and towards the basement. “What are you doing?” Samantha asked him.

“I need to hide my books someplace safe. And Mister Grey’s basement is the most secure place I know of in London.”

“Why not take the books with you?” Samantha asked him.

Isaac placed his box underneath the stairs. “Trust me with what I say. This house will stand for over fifty more years.”

“OK,” Samantha shrugged, “But one more question. How did you know the bombs would hit at 10pm?”

Isaac turned back to her, looking far more serious than any thirteen-year-old should be.

“Have faith, miss.”

The girls emptied their backpacks into the basement. Mister Grey’s eyebrows flew up and he stammered that he and Isaac would take the rest to Isaac’s foster parents when the sun came up.

“Thanks.” Jodie waved at them as the Book opened and pulled the girls through time.

“What in the blue blazes –“ Mr Grey began, but Isaac only smiled to himself, his brown eyes glowing an eerie green in the full moon.

 _Well, Gary, you’ve outdone yourself,_ he smiled. _Three thousand books. They will be pleased. I’d say that deserves a plum pudding._

He walked along the streets, back towards the house where Isaac was staying, before his evacuation tomorrow to Kent.

Gary thought about Peggy, Natasha and Elizabeth, or whatever their real names were. They must be from the Time Agency. That ridiculous watch gave it away. They were obviously still in training, although why they didn't have an adult with them, Gary had no idea.

Come to think of it, hadn’t his sister mentioned seeing strange children back in 1483? Gary wished that Faith and Joshua were with him on this mission, instead of being stranded in Germany while all this was going on.

 _I will be careful next time, Time Agency,_ he smirked to himself, _you are lucky that I needed you._

**12th April 2107**

As they landed in the classroom with a thump, Miss Knight opened the door again.

“Detention’s over. And don’t let me see you in here again!”

“No, Miss Knight,” all three gabbled as they left.

“Never – do that again, Jodie.” Freddi narrowed her eyes and pointed menacingly at Jodie as they left. “Detention is better than being blown apart by a bomb.”


	4. Chapter 4

**18th March 2007**

“Are you certain?” Joe asked Sam.

Sam was sitting on his bedroom chair, kicking his legs underneath, anxiously. “I wasn’t really sure,” he murmured, rubbing his bare arm, “but I was really tired. Maybe it was just a trance.”

“You said you saw green dots in your eyes,” Fred argued, “like in Jersey. What if something similar has happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Sam looked towards the ground, “I can remember what I saw this time. And I wasn’t spouting anything. I don’t think I was, at any rate.”

“I’m going to the Time Agency anyway,” Joe opened the Book, “so I’ll ask.”

**Time Agency**

When Joe arrived inside the Time Agency garden, Daisy had been cleaning out leaves from the pool with a rake. She said that Uncle Joe would be along shortly for their meditation.

Joe sat on the steps to the pavilion with the enormous crystal ball. He had never actually touched it, but he had seen Uncle Joe and Daisy and other Time Agents touch it. They could see what happened inside, but usually didn’t say what they saw. Uncle Joe had said that one part of the crystal ball was to record everything that had occurred inside the Time Agency.

As Joe touched the surprisingly soft top with his fingertips, he wondered if Uncle Joe had felt the same when he had started coming, nearly thirty years ago.

Suddenly, the crystal ball seemed to glow with a brilliant white light. But Joe wasn’t afraid. His eyes widened, although he wasn’t moving them, and he could see…

____

_“And here’s one I stuffed earlier.” Hedgewing placed an owl onto the dining table._

_Sat around the table were three Time Knights, Hedgewing and two young boys – Uncle Joe and Mad Jack. They looked perhaps a little younger than Joe now, which unsettled him a little._

_Seeing his uncles as young children was a little uncomfortable. Even more uncomfortable than seeing a dead owl on the table._

_Partly the fact that Hedgewing, Mad Jack’s eventual murder victim, was talking pleasantly about taxidermy chilled Joe to the bone._

_Mad Jack seemed completely bored. He was leaning on elbow on the arm of his chair, slouching. Uncle Joe – who looked just like a portrait of Joe, only with deliberate mistakes – seemed a little better, barely managing to keep his eyes open._

_Mad Jack gritted through his teeth, “You’ve been talking – about clocks – for twenty (beep) minutes – and now you’re showing us dead birds?”_

_To Joe’s surprise, he actually heard a beeping noise in his ears when Mad Jack said a certain word. Perhaps this vision was rated PG._

_“Don’t go on about it,” Uncle Joe pulled on his brother’s t-shirt, “they’ll start talking about crop rotations.”_

_Mad Jack pulled himself up, before groaning loudly, “When are we going to travel to Atlantis? You told us you would.”_

_“After dinner, Jack.” An old woman sitting next to Hedgewing reassured him, “Just let Hedgewing finish talking.”_

_The vision started to fade a little, before it showed the exact same situation. The only difference was that food was now placed in front of the chairs. The Time Agents were digging in with great gusto, while Uncle Joe and Mad Jack looked a little cautious._

_Uncle Joe prodded what was hopefully mashed potato, while Mad Jack raised an eyebrow and looked at Hedgewing. “This wasn’t made by Vicky, was it?”_

_Hedgewing shook his head. “Oh, no. She only makes special teas for everyone.”_

_“We had curried wedding cake for breakfast.” Mad Jack mumbled._

_Then Hedgewing laid his knife and fork down and sat back in his chair. “Now, as we are all here, I thought that I would like to talk about some of my 2,947 clocks.”_

____

_Mad Jack gave out a screech that sounded a little like a small animal being attacked, before pushing his chair away from the table and storming out of the door._

Joe blinked, coming back to the present. Which was a rather odd analogy, considering he was outside of Time. At the very least, he was back in his present.

Had he just witnessed his uncles when they were children? That dinner had looked rather unappetising and to be frank, Joe would have preferred having to go to Atlantis than sit around listening to a bunch of adults talk about clocks and crop rotations.

A few weeks ago, Uncle Joe had taken him to Hedgewing’s quarters, which still remained the same as they had when the previous Warp Wizard had died. Joe had to spend a night there.

“It’s tradition,” Uncle Joe had explained, “the new Warp Wizard has to spend the night here. In order to ‘absorb the insights of lives long gone’.”

The room had been filled to the brim with various types of clocks. Joe wouldn’t have minded that so much if they didn’t all tick. But it was the massive number of stuffed owls that unnerved him. They were everywhere; on the shelves, on the floor, on the dresser and even on the television stand.

At least it wasn’t as odd as some of the other Time Agents’ bedrooms, Joe found himself thinking. A deceased agent had sprigs of asparagus in vases the way someone might place flowers. An agent residing in Italy had an eyeball collection. One of the old men eternally meditating outside had a room filled with what appeared to be every single 1970s movie, all on video. That in itself wouldn’t have been too ridiculous if he had not stacked them into the shape of a Mayan pyramid.

Joe wondered about his mad uncle again, wondering if Uncle Joe had spoken to him after Hedgewing’s murder.

The crystal ball glowed again and then Joe could see.

____

_**1983, Time Agency** _

_Joseph stood outside in the snow as he looked at his brother walking away from the pavilion._

_“Jack,” he began to plead, “why aren’t you listening to me? You shouldn’t run off like this.”_

_Jack turned around, snarling as he leant on his staff. Joseph wondered where he’d got it from, considering that they’d learnt about placing time magic inside treasured objects a month prior._

_“Brother dear,” he mocked, “The Book is mine. You should listen to me when I say that big brothers go first.”_

_“It’s not for you,” Joseph tried not to sound as if he was whining, but clearly Jack thought that anyway, “it used to be our grandfather’s. It’s – well, it’s a family heirloom. Besides, do you know how much power is inside it?”_

_“Of course I know!” Jack snapped, “That’s why I want it! I could control time; I could have anything.”_

_“You shouldn’t!” Joseph started to run over to him, but Jack held the staff out at him._

_“Ah, ah, ah. I wouldn’t do that.” He sniggered. Joseph skidded to a halt._

_Jack placed the staff back into an upright position and carried on speaking. “Hedgewing – was an unfortunate accident. He happened to be there when I asked to see you the first time.”_

_“You did?” Joseph’s voice got stuck in his throat. Jack nodded. Joseph tried to work out if his brother was lying, but he was so slippery that it could be impossible to tell.  
Then he asked, “But – Jack – why did you kill him?”_

_Jack shrugged. “Probably got angry. I just – blacked out. I barely remember anything about killing Hedgewing. Anyway, I’d better go.” He started walking further down the mountainside, his staff glowing._

_“Jack, you can’t do this!” Joseph squealed like a child. Jack simply rolled his eyes and looked back over his shoulder._

_“Oh, can’t I?”_

_Joseph heard footsteps running from the pavilion. He heard Agent Tommy and Agent Cath yelling from behind him. Yelling after Jack._

_Yelling after his brother._

_Jack simply disappeared with time mist, away to who knew where._

_Tommy placed a comforting hand on Joseph’s shoulder and ushered the boy back inside._

_Inside the living room, where most of the Time Pages were undergoing their exercises, mostly rope-climbing and karate, Kristopher stood watching them._

_Tommy and Cath brought Joseph up to him to explain._

_“Kristopher,” Cath started to gabble, “we found Jack Arthur outside. We think he spied on the ceremony.”_

_“Really?” Kristopher, as usual, remained stoic. You might as well have told him that a flock of geese were seen overhead. “I wonder where the boy goes these days. Shall we have a vote as to whether we should see where his energy has gone?”_

_“I vote for beef wellington and tea,” Agent Hailey spoke up from wrestling Lottie into a pretzel shape._

_“That’s a good idea,” Cath started murmuring, “anyone for beef wellington and tea, say ‘aye’.”_

_“Aye!” several Time Pages shouted, raising their hands, including one who fell from his climbing rope._

_“Can we please talk about this later?” Joseph argued, “My brother was outside!” He looked up at Kristopher. “Please, my Mom’s been devastated since he ran away. My sister’s miserable. If you do find him, don’t punish him too harshly.”_

_Kristopher frowned. “You know as well as I do what he’s done, even at his young age.”_

_Joseph knew that it was useless to try and argue. He sighed and looked to the floor. “I guess you’re right, Kristopher.”_

____

Joe was flung back from the vision as it dispersed. Then he noticed Uncle Joe standing behind him, writing a calculation in the air with his pen.

“Oh, Uncle Joe. I…” Joe began, but Uncle Joe only smiled at him.

“I knew you would be curious. Yes, family is a very important thing.” Uncle Joe sighed.

“Pity Mad Jack didn’t know that,” Joe replied, “Where is he now?”

“The dungeon,” Uncle Joe told him, as the calculation turned into green mist and the pen flew back to his pocket, “Spends all his time by the waterfall.”

“Waterfall?” Joe asked, puzzled.

“Under the pool,” Uncle Joe pointed at the water’s edge.

Joe got down onto his knees and squinted. He _could_ see a waterfall, with all sorts of bright flora surrounding it. And almost directly underneath the waterfall was his crazed uncle. Except that he was in a meditating position and looked almost peaceful. A word that Joe would never usually connect with Mad Jack.

“It’s sometimes to achieve solace,” Uncle Joe crossed his legs and sat beside Joe, “or to cast spells. Not very powerful ones, mind. And you need to have particular crystals if you want to do so. The Warp Wizards have often gone down there to speak to other Warp Wizards.”

“So if I go down there,” Joe asked, “would I speak to Hedgewing?”

“Yes,” Uncle Joe explained, “you may. That’s why you had to sleep in his bedroom. Oh, there have been many Warp Wizards. You will have heard of some of them. Merlin. Nostradamus. Cassandra of Troy. Edgar Cayce was the one before Hedgewing. But the meditation is used to activate new powers. Since Hedgewing was dead by the time you received the Book, I do not know if you undergoing the meditation will work. The Warp Wizard has to give his blessing. And I’m sure he would have done so, Joe.”

“What about when we were in Scotland?” Joe was confused. “Hedgewing – used my body.”

“Your powers were working in unison,” Uncle Joe said, “and if you want to have all of the same powers as him then I’d suggest perhaps doing this in the future. But lets go inside for our normal meditation, shall we?”

____

Under the water, Mad Jack smiled to himself.

His stupid brother and his annoying nephew had no idea what he was up to. Oh, this particular spell would take a long time to perfect, that was true, but by the time he was finished, he would have his revenge.

And the two of them wouldn’t even see it coming.


	5. Chapter 5

**9th May 2007**

Sitting at the diner, Fred sipped at a milkshake while Jodie and Samantha nibbled at the French fries. Fred remembered Samantha saying that fast food was illegal in the twenty-second century. One more thing he didn’t want to know about the future.

“So how is everyone?” Jodie asked, swallowing the tops of five fries in her hand.

Fred shrugged, pushing his milkshake aside. “Fine. Joe’s babysitting Anna because she’s grounded.”

“Grounded? Why?” Samantha asked him.

Fred groaned, rolling his eyes. “She got paint on the walls at her Girl Scouts. She got angry and swung around a paint pot. I’m not really sure why. Joe found it funny, though.”

Samantha sniggered. Then she pointed at the jacket Fred was wearing. “Is that new?”

“Yeah,” Fred took it off, “looks just like the real thing. It’s a cowboy jacket.”

“You know that not all cowboys wore clothes like that?” Samantha told him.

“Really?” Fred teased, raising an eyebrow. “Want to check?”

“Oh, not now,” Jodie whined as the time mist emerged from the Book in her bag, “I’m on a full stomach.”

**April 1865**

Landing on a dusty hillside, the three of them cautiously stood up. “Where is this, exactly?” Samantha asked, putting up a hand to shade her eyes from the sun.

“Well,” Fred took the Book from Jodie, as the girl moaned loudly and placed a hand by her head, “it says here that we’re somewhere in West Virginia, in April 1865.”

“Hardly the Wild West,” Samantha snorted, “why we’d come here?”

“Hey!” a voice called out from behind them. Samantha and Fred looked back to see an angry-looking farmer behind a fence. “You delivering the cattle?”

“Cattle?” Fred asked him.

“You are the cowboy, aren’t you?” the farmer opened the gate to come up.

Fred smiled, nodding rapidly. The farmer then told him, “Good. I need someone to drive the cows I don’t want to Washington. Hurry up!”

“Cows?” Fred whispered to Samantha, who replied with, “’Cowboy’ is the term for someone who drove cattle from the Wild West to lands further east. They were a lot more boring than you think.”

Fred felt a small pit in his stomach, just as Jodie brought up the contents of her stomach.

“Is she all right?” the farmer pointed at her, “I don’t want someone being sick on my land.”

“She’s fine, she’s just got motion sickness.” Samantha gabbled as she lifted Jodie’s arm over her own shoulder.

“Motion sickness?” The farmer didn’t know what that word meant.

“It’s all right,” Fred gabbled quickly, “we’ll take it from here.”

The problem was that they could barely sit on the horses. They kept gripping the reins the wrong way or didn’t know how to force the cows out of the paddock and along the dirt road. But after an annoyingly long time, the three of them were on their way, the Book hidden beneath Fred’s jacket.

A very long, boring expedition later, the three of them were sitting under a cluster of trees in the shade.

“Argh! This is just _irritating_!” Jodie groaned, “I swear I broke a nail.”

“If you keep on moaning, you’ll break more than that.” Samantha mumbled. “How much further to wherever it was that the farmer said it was?”

“Roughly twenty miles.” Fred pointed at a nearby signpost.

“I think I prefer triple algebra.” Jodie grumbled.

Fred raised an eyebrow. “I don’t want to know what classes are like in the twenty-second century.”

“It’s fine,” Samantha pushed her glasses up, “we’re studying history at the moment. America in the twenty-first century. Oh, heads up, Fred, you need to have quite a bit of money saved when the Second Great Depression arrives in a couple of years–“

“What?” Fred cried.

Samantha looked over to the right, trying to find something else to talk about. “Oh, look!” she pointed at the dirt road, “Someone left a newspaper.”

Walking over, she lifted it up and read it aloud.

“’WANTED: The Delroy gang, for robbery, fraud, kidnap and murder between 28th March 1864 and 31st March 1865. The members of the gang are as follows; Bill Delroy, age 33 years, Tom Delroy, age 30 or 31 years, Luke Delroy, age 27 years. They may be travelling with a Chickasaw Indian, name of Adam Two Feathers, of around 13 years. May also be travelling with two hostages from St. Louis, Elizabeth Haywood (13) and John Haywood (13), seen with the gang since 8th January. Sighted in the area of Washington on 1st April. Reward of $1500.’”

Samantha looked up from the paper and asked, “Isn’t it April here?”

Jodie nodded.

Samantha shuddered at the thought of vicious criminals possibly being nearby. “We’d better get going,” she told them as she climbed onto her horse, “don’t want to be out here at night.”

After they had travelled a few more miles and the sun was rather low in the sky, Samantha was about to ask if they should stop for the night when they heard the sound of a gunshot behind them.

Jodie and Fred screamed while Samantha ducked. They needn’t have worried, since the bullet was lodged in a tree some way behind them and in another direction, but it was scary all the same.

There were five horses behind them, each one carrying a rider. A gruff-looking boy stood beside one of the horses, holding the pistol that had shot into the tree. Three of the riders were grown men, but two of the riders were boys, only the same age as themselves. The time-travellers immediately held their hands up.

One of the men snarled, “Bit young to be cowboys, aren’t ya?”

One of the boys got off from their horse and walked up, prodding the saddle of Jodie’s horse. “They’re as good as any other.” His voice was quite high. Presumably his voice hadn’t broken yet. Jodie wondered if these were members of the Delroy gang.

Fred asked, “Are you going to hurt us?” He knew that there was no point asking, since the gang wouldn’t say if they were.

Another man chuckled. “They’re foolish enough to come out without any food or drink, I can see that.” Then he grunted. “Adam! Search them!”

The second boy got off from his horse. He gestured with his pistol for the three of them to get down from their horses, before slotting it back into his belt and patting them down. “Clean, sir!” he called out. Then his eyes widened when he tapped on Jodie’s chest.

“Hey!” she shouted, but he pulled the Book out anyway.

“What about this, sir?” he asked.

“They don’t want books,” the high-pitched gunman groaned, “they want money.”

Adam opened the book and raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “It’s not in English,” he told his friends, “You read this?” he asked the high-pitched one.

The high-pitched one took the Book and squinted. “Not in French. Not Spanish, either. And you can’t read it, so it won’t be your language.”

Adam mumbled something about the Chickasaw not actually having a written language, but the high-pitched one simply handed it back to Fred. “Take it before I change my mind.” She snapped at him.

Fred somehow found himself thanking them, trying his best not to look into their angry green eyes.

“It’s going to be hard to shove a bunch of cows this way,” one of the men argued, “I’d say let the kids go.”

“Yes, please!” Jodie nodded frantically, grinning. Fred and Samantha followed suit.

The gunmen got back onto their horses, moving on.

“That was close,” Samantha hissed, “Should we stop?”

“Let’s get a drink from somewhere anyway,” Fred suggested, “I’m thirsty enough to drain a well.”

They had ridden on further down the dirt road before they saw a creek. It was now dark and Jodie whined that she wanted a comfy bed and a hot cocoa. Samantha muttered to Fred that if Jodie carried on the way she was then she would throw river water over her.

Fred sniggered, causing Jodie to look over her shoulder and scowl at them.

When Samantha and Jodie were giving the horses and cows a drink, with difficulty in Jodie’s case, Fred sat by some bushes and took his hat off, fanning himself.

He saw a firelight some way further down the creek and followed it. Maybe whoever it was had food.

He was peering through the bushes when he recognised the outlaws he had seen earlier.

The Native American was stroking his horse as the gruff-looking one, sitting on a log, handed a box to him.

“Hide it up in the cave. I’ll come up and do the co-ordinates.” He said.

The two boys rode up a nearby path on the horse while the third held a tin of refried beans over the campfire. Putting the tin beside him a few seconds later, the boy patted the head of his horse.

“It’s alright, boy,” the high-pitched boy smiled, stroking him, “Let’s get a drink. They’re going to be a long time, anyway.”

The boy took the horse to the creek, inches from Fred’s face. Fred tensed as the high-pitched boy crouched down and took a drink himself. He looked off into the distance, coincidentally in Fred’s direction.

Fred raised his eyebrow.

Standing up from the bush, thorns scratching his ankle as he did so, Fred almost startled them. He hadn’t quite been able to place the boy’s voice, but when the outlaw had leant down, Fred had caught a glimpse of his eyes.

This wasn’t a boy at all.

“Faith?” he asked.

Running over, Samantha and Jodie looked as Fred pulled the outlaw’s hat off, revealing a plait. It was brown rather than blonde, but Fred knew those eyes anywhere. They were a different shade from earlier, but this time he could see the colour of the time mist.

“What are you talking about?” she squeaked, making it clear to all three that this definitely was a girl.

“Faith?” he asked again. “Remember me? Fred? From London?”

“Fred, you know this girl?” Jodie asked him. He frantically nodded.

“Yeah, it’s the girl who helped me when we rescued Prince Richard.”

Jodie and Samantha looked rightfully confused. “But that was four hundred years ago,” Samantha argued, “and on the other side of the world. How can she be here?”

“It’s her eyes,” Fred grabbed Faith by the wrists and pulled her over to the campfire for a closer look. Faith dug her heels into the ground all the way, shouting in protest.

When he looked at her again, Fred squinted a little. It was true that ‘Faith’ was now a brunette and her nose was larger. He was also certain that the Faith in 1483 had been shorter than him, whereas now she was possibly two inches taller.

But there was no mistaking those eyes.

“What’s in that box?” Fred demanded. Faith looked up at the cave, where the other outlaw had gone.

Faith pulled away from him, stepping back. “Get away from me if you know what’s good for you.” She muttered, glaring at them. She jumped up onto her horse and started to ride off to the cave, not looking back.

“What –“ Jodie began, but Samantha walked up to Fred’s side.

“Is that the girl Freddi told us about?” she asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Fred nodded. “I don’t understand…”

“What I _do_ understand,” Jodie held her hands on her hips, “is that I’m thirsty! And hungry! I’m taking the girl’s beans!”

Samantha tried to find an explanation as the three of them walked back to their cattle, Jodie’s arms filled with tin cans.

“The newspaper said something about two hostages. I think – those two may be the hostages the gang took in St. Louis. I think they could have Stockholm Syndrome or something.”

“But that doesn’t explain why she had the same eyes.” Fred argued, frowning.

“She could be a relative.” Samantha suggested what she thought might be the only possible explanation.

“Do you think she’d have the eyes after four hundred years?” Fred asked sceptically.

“Genetics are funny.” Samantha shrugged.

“That wasn’t genetics,” Fred argued, “those were _Faith’s_ eyes. Do you think I wouldn’t recognize the colour of the time mist?”

“Let’s not quarrel about it now,” Samantha interrupted, “Let’s just get some rest someplace else.”

In the morning, they drove the cattle down to a nearby small town. Jodie was complaining again, this time about twigs in her hair. Samantha looked as if she wanted to slap her.

Fred told the others that he was going to urinate before they went home. When he was pulling up his zipper behind some houses, he squinted as something caught his eye.

Faith was leaving the Western Union post office across the road. She was walking up to her horse outside, leading it behind the houses at the other end of the street. Fred took his chance. Running, he watched as she tethered the horse to a tree outside a rundown-looking building. As Faith was about to open the gate, Fred grabbed her by the waist and held a hand over her mouth.

Faith kicked out and tried to stamp on his feet, but Fred dragged her beneath the fence, out of sight.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered into her ear, “I just want to know how you could be here and in medieval England.”

She felt on her belt for her pistol. Fred tried again. “I’ll take my hand off if you don’t shoot me.” His heart pounding in his throat, hoping that this strange girl would listen to him. Faith held her hands up in surrender. Fred took his hand from her mouth.

“Why did I see you in two different places?” he asked.

She only snapped at him, “My brothers will come out to get me if I don’t go back inside. We are going to leave this miserable place when we catch the train.”

“How old are you?” Fred knew that she couldn’t be much older than him, but the way she acted so confidently made him wonder.

“Thirteen months, nine months.” Faith replied nonchalantly.

Fifteen months older than him. Fred then asked her, “How were you in 1483 as well?”

“I cannot say,” Faith giggled, “Poor Fred. You have no clue, do you?”

“I know that you’re a time-traveller,” Fred told her, “But why do you look so different? Aside from the eyes, I mean. And how do you know my name?”

But Faith wouldn’t answer him. Instead, she screamed, “Joshua! Gary! Help me!”

Fred closed his hand over her mouth again, but it was too late. The back door had been kicked open and the other two robbers had bounded out. Fred heard a loud thump behind him and turned his head.

The gruff-looking one had apparently leapt over the fence and was glaring nastily at Fred. The Native American stood directly in front of Fred, holding a stick of green chalk in his hand and looking absolutely furious.

“Let her go.” The gruff-looking one didn’t raise his voice. Instead, he was calm and demeaning, which possibly made it scarier.

Fred didn’t need to be told twice. He let go of Faith and walked backwards against the tree. The Native American helped Faith up and the gruff-looking one cracked his knuckle.

“He knows we’re time-travellers,” Faith hissed to the Native American, “He’s from the Time Agency.”

“Ah,” the Native American nodded, deep in thought, “In that case, I think I need to ask a few questions.”

“But the train’s in fifteen minutes and we have to do the ritual!” the gruff-looking one grunted.

“All in good time,” the Native American sniggered, “King’s Lynn? Remember, boy?”

Fred nodded. Joe had been there only a week ago.

“Alright,” the Native American stood tall and commanding, “Cyrenaica? Does that ring a bell?”

Fred shook his head.

“How about the British Museum? Have your little friends been there yet?”

Fred nodded.

“Does the name Gemma come to mind? Or the name Ling?”

Fred shook his head.

The Native American stood back and glanced at the other two. “No need for anything, yet. Best keep this to ourselves, guys. You know what he’ll do if he finds out that Time Agents have been snooping.”

Fred heard Samantha calling for him. “I’d…I’d better go.” He rubbed the back of his head.

The Native American started to walk back into the house. Faith only stared wistfully at Fred before the gruff-looking one took her hand and started pulling her back inside. “Get out of here.” The gruff-looking one snarled.

Fred didn’t need to be told twice. Racing off, almost skidding in the dirt, he made his way to Samantha and Jodie.

When he returned, Jodie eyed him suspiciously. “Where have you been?” she asked, opening the Book.

“I just want to go home.” Fred gabbled quickly.

Jodie shrugged and started typing. All of a sudden, the time mist swirled around them and took them back to the diner.

**Time Agency**

“The young outlaws,” Samantha read from the screen inside a study, “were caught as they took the train to St. Louis. Exactly why they were in the state of Virginia is unknown.”

Then she read out the names. “John and Elizabeth Haywood, ages thirteen, and Adam Two Feathers, age twelve or thirteen, claim that they were ill for the week leading up to their arrest and do not know how they came to be on the train.”

Fred gingerly pressed the button a few times before he came across what he’d been dreading.  
“The three of them were hanged in St. Louis on Sunday.”

His voice shook as he took in the information. Faith, Meg, Elizabeth, whatever her name was, she didn’t deserve to die like this.

Samantha drew back from the desk, still sitting in her chair. “If this had happened today, I think that the Haywood twins would have been diagnosed with Stockholm Syndrome. Possibly. It depends on how ruthless they actually were.”

Jodie put a comforting arm around Fred.

“She just looked like the girl you saw in 1483, Fred. I don’t know how they could be the same girl.”

**Elsewhere…**

She sat in her room, fiddling with her plait and looking over the notes for the next mission at the Jishi Gorge in ancient China. Her dad always wanted them to start researching as soon as one mission had finished.

There was a knock at the door. “Faith?” Joshua asked, “Can I come in?”

She grunted. He opened the door, before looking sadly at her.

“Faith…” he began, but she groaned, pushed the papers onto the floor and placed her head over her arms. “Faith, we can’t let anything compromise our missions.”

“Joshua,” she wiped her nose on the back of her hand, “I looked at him. Back when I was twelve. I _knew_. I knew that he was a time-traveller.”

“Faith, you can’t just go fawning over a boy,” Joshua folded his arms, “You need to focus.”

“I’m sick of focusing!” Faith shrieked, standing up. “He’s the first person I’ve been honest with that wasn’t my dad or brothers!”

“You told him your name,” Joshua groaned inwardly, “And don’t try to think about him. If Dad catches us, you know what he’ll do.”

“I guess so,” Faith murmured, letting her brother embrace her.

He nodded. “Tell you what, I’ll make that gateau that I’ve been putting off. Just for you. Okay?”

Faith nodded silently, but inside she was torn apart.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the two subplots will start to make a little bit of sense, or at least start to be pieced together. I really hope that you enjoy this and let me know in the comments if you have figured anything out before I start to explain in Chapter Nine.
> 
> By the way, King John died of dysentery. Gorging on peaches and wine didn't help. I don't know if his physicians gave him trepanning as a way to help him, but knowing medieval medicine, I wouldn't completely rule it out.
> 
> Oddly enough, I can actually remember the second of May 2007.

**2nd May 2007**

“Come on, Sam!” Fred groaned, as the other boy carried science textbooks in his arms, “We’re graduating the sixth grade today. Surely whatever you’re doing can wait?”

“I need the science laboratory,” Sam spoke in a low, odd voice, “and if we graduate today, then I will have to wait otherwise.”

Fred shrugged. “Your loss.”

He went outside to where Joe was sitting cross-legged on the bleachers, watching the eighth-graders having their photographs taken.

“You know, they’re pretty,” Joe pointed at the pyramid of cheerleaders, “and as Mom said, I’m growing up fast.”

“Oh, come on!” Fred scoffed, “Girls are still cootie magnets!”

“For you, maybe,” Joe rolled his eyes, “anyway, I thought you’d go through puberty first. I’m younger than the both of you.”

“Only by six months,” Fred grumbled, sitting beside his friend, “Anyway, thought about anyone to take to the prom tonight?”

Joe teased him. “I thought you said girls were cootie magnets.”

“I know,” Fred rubbed the back of his neck, “but it’s getting to the point where it looks awkward if we go together.”

“Well, my first choice is one of the cheerleaders,” Joe sniggered, “but I have a Plan B.” He strummed his fingers on his schoolbag. Fred peered over and saw the Book inside.

“Not in a hundred years!” Fred grimaced, “Which if I’m right in thinking, is exactly what you’re asking.”

“Not our _own_ great-granddaughters, that’s gross,” Joe pulled a face, “but since they’re the only girls we know, we could come up with something.”

“Dude! No!” Fred went a strange shade of pale green.

“They’re already here,” Joe narrowed his eyes, “They’re in the library. Samantha said that she wanted to look around twentieth century buildings for her new project she’s doing and Jodie and Freddi said they wanted to say hi.”

Fred rolled his eyes and stood up as he saw the girls come out of the nearby building. Samantha seemed to be smiling happily.

“I always wanted to see a projector,” she giggled, “It’s rather – quaint.”

“You think this school is quaint, then you should come here every day,” murmured Joe, “Anyway, are you finished looking around?”

Freddi nodded. “We had to decide between seeing you lot and going back to medieval times. And since Samantha didn’t want to wear her hat again, we thought it was best if we saw your graduation. Since you asked, anyway.”

Then the Book started to glow. “Oh, not now!” Joe stuffed it under his shirt and ran behind the bleachers. But he barely had any time to take it out before time mist flew around him, also sucking in Fred, Freddi and Samantha.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Jodie cried to thin air.

**1216, Norfolk**

Joe stared up at the sky. Dreary, wet and cold. Very different from school.

“Get off me!” Fred shouted, snapping Joe from his thoughts.

“Oh, sorry,” Joe apologized, getting off his friend and helping him up, “Anyone have a clue where we are?”

Freddi and Samantha, who were already standing up and looking out across the field they had landed in, looked back at him. Freddi picked up the Book from the ground, pushed what was hopefully mud off from the cover and opened it.

“It says here that we’re in England, in the year 1216.” She read aloud.

“England. I might have guessed.” Fred snorted.

“You did you were torn between going here and seeing us, weren’t you?” Joe asked, pointing at the girls. They nodded in unison. “OK, let’s have a look.”

He took the Book from Freddi and looked inside as Jodie’s hologram came up.

“Guys? Where are you?” she asked.

“England, 1216,” Joe gabbled, “I don’t know why you stayed behind.”

“Maybe I need to help Sam with his experiment,” Jodie offered.

“Yeah, sure, OK,” Joe circled his hand about, “just don’t blow yourself up.”

“And good luck to you.” Jodie waved before the hologram dispersed.

“Where now?” Samantha asked, pushing her glasses up.

“What happened in 1216?” Fred asked her.

“Why are you asking me?” she asked.

“Well, since our resident bookworm is currently mixing up I don’t know what back in the twenty-first century, you’re our next best bet.” Samantha crossed her arms and frowned at him. “It’s a compliment.”

“If this is England,” Samantha’s eyes looked to the right as she scrambled for an answer, “then King John will be on the throne.”

“The same king from Robin Hood?” Joe asked.

Samantha nodded. “He’s going to cross the Wash in Norfolk and lose the Crown Jewels.”

“The Wash?” Fred raised an eyebrow, amused. “He’s going to lose the crown with his underpants?”

“It’s not _a_ wash,” Samantha explained, “The Wash is an area between Norfolk and Lincolnshire that flooded frequently. Although archaeologists are unsure as to whether he actually had the Crown Jewels on him when his party went through…”

“OK, let’s just go and try and find King John, since that’s possibly why we’re here.” Joe hid the Book inside his satchel and they walked off.

**2007**

“What do you want me to pass?” Jodie asked, as Sam stared intently inside a microscope.

“Syringe.” Sam held his hand out without looking up.

Jodie passed it over as Sam used it to pry something out from a Petri dish he was studying. “Amazing the things one can find in a school.” He muttered to himself as he fiddled with the dials.

Jodie was fed up. Sam had been pottering around with various liquids, test tubes and vials for the better part of an hour. A visit to see her friends was not supposed to go like this. 

Then they heard footsteps outside the laboratory. Jodie’s eyes widened and she ducked inside a cupboard. Sam did not move.

Mrs Tanner entered. “Sam?” she asked, “What are you doing in here? Classes have ended. And – are you making –“

“It’s none of your business, you cankerous old bat,” Sam gabbled, irritated.

Jodie held back a snigger. As dangerous as this was, she had never heard him speak like that before.

“How _dare_ you talk to me like that, young man! And get this cleaned up immediately! You’re a good boy, Sam, why would you do this? Don’t you roll your eyes at me!”

Jodie wondered if she should open the door and they could make a break for it, but she didn’t dare.

Sam tutted. “Mrs Tanner, I think you –“

He started shuddering. Arms at his sides, he curled up his hands, gritted his teeth, squinted his left eye and widened the right. His left eye suddenly started twitching violently and his speech moved between shouting and slurring.

“ **I** – ne – _neeeed_ – time – alone – Mrs Tanner. I simply hhaaave to – fin- _iissshhh_ –“ Then he slammed his palms onto the table.

****

****

“Get a hold of yourself!” he shouted loudly.

Jodie tensed, worried. It sounded as if he needed help.

“Are you all right?” Mrs Tanner’s voice turned from angry to concerned, as Sam slapped his face.

“OK. That’s better.” He looked back up at Mrs Tanner, frowning.

“Sam, you can be honest with me,” she leant down on the desk, squeezing between test tubes and a Bunsen burner, “are you – _on_ anything?”

“Oh, no, no, Mrs Tanner,” Sam smoothly replied, “I’ll come to the nurse’s office with you right now.” He turned the Bunsen burner off, placed some items back on a metal tray and smiled sweetly at her as he walked out with the teacher.

Jodie slowly peeked up from inside the cupboard. Looking first to her right, then her left, she got out and went up to the desk.

Sam had scribbled on some paper on the tray _Set everything back up. I’ll be ten minutes._

Jodie did so, hoping that Sam knew what he was doing.

**1216**

Upon reaching what looked like a manor house, Freddi nervously knocked on the door.

“I just hope this is it.” She told the others as Samantha pulled her hat on.

A serving girl answered it, worn out from having been running. “What is it?” she demanded, “One of our party is quite ill.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Joe said smoothly, “we’re doctors.”

“Bit young, aren’t you?” she asked, sceptically.

“We’re apprentices,” Fred tried to explain, “since the local doctor has –“

“Too much phlegm, causing a humor imbalance.” Samantha butted in. The others looked at her for a brief second before they smiled and nodded.

It was clear that the serving girl didn’t believe them, but she let them in anyway. Inside a bedchamber, the group saw a group of worried-looking servants and a few noblemen whispering intently. The serving girl immediately cleared her throat, before saying, “The apprentice doctors, sirs.” Then she left quickly, shutting the door behind her.

A nobleman walked over and looked down at the four of them. “Go and help the royal physician examine the king.”

Most of the room left, leaving just a man in a shabby grey tunic with blood all over it. “Hi,” Joe held his hand out, uneasily, “how can we help?”

The physician frowned. “King John has something wrong with him. I would advise that we see to him straight away.”

“Of course,” Joe tried to smile, “What seems to be the problem?”

As the four of them made their way to the bed, they heard the king groaning in agony. The physician clarified, “King John was crossing the Wash when the tide came in earlier than he said it would. He became wet and has not been himself since.”

“The Wash?” Samantha asked, “Didn’t he lose his Crown Jewels there?”

The physician snorted. “So that rumour has already reached the villages. He has, young man. At least, we’re not certain if they were indeed inside the trunk when we set off.

Anyway, the King does not know yet. It would only add to the huge pile of problems he has.”

“Problems?” Fred asked the physician as the man drew back the sheets and opened a jar.

“Have you been living in a cave? We are in the middle of war! King Alexander has invaded the north and King Louis has already arrived in Kent. Add to the Magna Carta on top of all this and even if he wasn’t dying, the King would be miserable.” The physician added a leech to the king’s upper right leg. “Can any of you read?”

All four nodded. “Good,” the physician handed Joe a piece of paper, “I need three of you to collect some herbs from the back garden and to go into town and buy some crushed diamonds. Someone needs to stay behind and help me leech the King.”

“Not it.” Joe, Samantha and Freddi all cried. Fred moaned but didn’t say anything, instead holding the jar of leeches as his friends left.

“Now, boy,” the physician pulled his trousers up, “have you been taught trepanning yet?”

“I hate you guys.” Fred murmured.

**2007**

In the nurse’s office, Sam sat on the cot and waited as Mrs Tanner started looking through the First Aid kit for a thermometer. “I know it’s in here somewhere,” she grumbled, “Aha! Now, open wide, Sam.”

She turned to see Sam smirking nastily back at her. She was bewildered as to why the kind, tidy, straight-A student was looking at her so menacingly. Or why he had his right hand curled around something out of sight.

Or why he had tiny green pinpricks inside his pupils.

**1216**

Samantha and Freddi went off in a cart to town, while Joe decided to pick herbs in the garden. He hadn’t heard of most of these before. St. John’s wort, bistort, mugwort and flax were strange enough, but he was sure that hemlock was poisonous.

He stayed away from the ones that he knew were deadly. To be on the safe side, he pulled all of the herbs out with what looked like a pair of pliers to him, presumably from a blacksmith’s.

When he had gone inside, he saw a servant rushing out of another bedchamber. Joe hide behind a corner as the servant looked about nervously and walked off in another direction.

Joe wondered what was inside. Leaving the basket of herbs on the ground, he made his way in.

Almost immediately, he heard footsteps outside. Diving under the bed, Joe saw two pairs of feet come inside. One person shut the door and the other opened a trunk beside the bed.

“Are you certain that they are here?” one of them asked. Joe was taken aback by how young they sounded.

The other voice answered, “Yes. I saw the servants carrying them in. Now, watch the door.” Like his companion, the voice belonged to a child.

Joe was puzzled. What were two children doing in here? Then Joe realised. The Crown Jewels were in this bedroom. The servants must have made sure that they weren’t with the king when he crossed the Wash, either to keep them safe or somehow make money from them. But that still didn’t answer the question as to what two children wanted with them.

Because Joe couldn’t see very much due to the drapes still being pulled around the bed, he lay his head on the floor and looked out at an angle. He could see two boys, possibly a little younger than him, both of them servants. One of them stood by the slightly ajar door, gripping a heavy-looking sword in his tiny hands. The other sat cross-legged on the rug in front of Joe, holding what looked like a chalice in his right hand.

The boy sat in front of the bed then did something rather unusual. He took a few grains of what appeared to be green powder from the chalice, closing his eyes and muttering as he raised his arm above his head and drew a circle around him on the floor. Then he pulled some ashes from the bag around his waist and, holding the chalice in front of him, threw them in.

There was a small bang and a thin plume of greenish-grey smoke flew up from the chalice. The boy stood and Joe could see several symmetrical lines in the circle, all of which were moving. The boy lifted a jug from the ground and poured water into the chalice, which he then drank.

The boy’s whole body seemed to shimmer a faint green, before he placed a hand out towards a nearby trunk. Joe shuffled under the bed to look out the other side. He could see the individual crown jewels had been lifted out.

Suddenly, the young boy’s voice became increasingly louder, before he shouted. The words weren’t in English, so Joe had no clue what he had just said. But he did know that this boy was a magician.

A powerful one, it seemed. The kid couldn’t be older than eleven, but yet, here he was, performing a ritual in the guest bedroom of a country house in the backwoods of medieval England!

Come to think about it, hadn’t Uncle Joe performed a similar lifting spell with his pen? Yes, it was between the pages on transformation magic and possession magic. It was a very powerful spell, right at the back of the Book. Uncle Joe had said that there were only two ways one could accomplish these spells with ease. The first was to be a powerful magician, with dedication, hard work and talent. The second was to have been born or live outside of time. After all, Uncle Joe had explained to him, possession magic - or possessing a body in another time or place, as he had put it - could only be done outside of time.

Joe sneezed and then tensed.

Almost instantly, the boy who had been by the door yanked Joe out by the legs from the other end of the bed. Joe shrieked, but the boy instead pinioned him to the bed, holding a shepherd’s staff over his windpipe.

“Don’t say a word,” he hissed at Joe, “ _time-traveller_.”

Joe didn’t know what was more unsettling. The fact that this – rather strong for a child – boy knew that Joe was a time-traveller, or that behind the boy’s mop of greasy blonde hair were two shining eyes the same colour as the time mist. The exact same colour.

Joe couldn’t turn his head very easily, but he heard the magician finish chanting and the green lights faded. The magician then asked the other boy, without a hint of caring, “What should we do with him, Gary?”

“The boy’s obviously a Time Agent,” Gary didn’t even look back at his friend, “didn’t know they started travelling this young. The Time Agency will be suspicious if he doesn’t return.”

“They lose contacts all the time,” the magician whined, and for the first time he was acting like an actual child, “why should this be any different?”

“Because,” Gary glanced back with gritted teeth, “if the Time Agency are training him, they wouldn’t let him have come alone. He likely has someone looking for him. And if anyone tracks us back, well…” Gary trailed off, looking back at Joe and raising a displeased eyebrow.

“Look, we’re going any minute,” the magician was getting flustered, “just bash the kid on the head or something.”

“Just wait a moment. She’ll be along shortly.” Gary smiled, showing off hideous stumps, normal hygiene for anyone in the Middle Ages.

There were footsteps outside. Joe wondered if it was the girls. If it was them, would these boys attack? It would be three against two, but one was a magician (and not a rubbish one like Joe was) and the other was practically a ninja.

But although it was a girl who opened the door, it wasn’t Samantha or Freddi.

Gary lifted his staff and faced her. Joe, rubbing his sore neck where the staff had dug in, looked up at her.

Like the boys she too was a servant, although her greasy blonde hair was shoulder-length. Joe wondered if the two were related.

“Guys, hurry up!” she snarled. She looked over at Joe for a few seconds and opened her mouth to speak when the magician put a hand up.

“Gary’s sorted it.”

The girl rolled her eyes and groaned, rushing out of the room, followed by the magician. Gary swung the crook of the staff into Joe’s stomach, causing him to keel over on the sheets, before the third child ran off.

**2007**

“Was everything okay?” Jodie asked Sam when he re-entered the classroom. He had changed his shirt and was dusting his shorts off.

“Oh, I’m fine. I managed to convince Mrs Tanner that I was perfectly all right. Now, back to business!”

Soon Jodie was holding three jars with gloved hands as Sam carefully poured three different liquids inside; one pale blue, one yellow and one pale green. As she screwed the lids on tight, Jodie couldn’t help but ask him, “What’s this for, Sam?”

“A private experiment of mine, nothing too dangerous. You come into contact with these chemicals every day, Jodie; there is nothing to worry about.” He spoke so calmly and assertively that it was rather creepy.

“If you think it isn’t dangerous…” Jodie lowered the jars into a plastic box and sealed it up.

After they had left the lab, Sam told Jodie, “I need to go into the auditorium. I need to concentrate on something. Please come with me to keep a lookout.”

“Lookout? Sam, if you’re…”

“There is nothing for you to worry about,” he interrupted, bluntly, “I simply need to concentrate on something.”

“But why?” Jodie asked, through gritted teeth. “I’m sick of you not telling me.”

“It’s none of your business!” Sam snapped at her, glaring horribly. Jodie swallowed and stepped back, a little afraid.

“Listen,” he sighed, pushing his glasses up, “that was wrong of me. I – I apologize for being so nasty with you. Friends?”

He held out his hand and Jodie took it.

What unnerved her, however, was that his handshake seemed completely different. Instead of a limp grip, it was firm, tight and a little clammy.

Jodie wasn’t sure what was scarier.

**1216**

“Oh good, you’re back!” the physician cried as he took a bag with what the girls had been told were crushed diamonds, “Just in time to help me with some bloodletting.”

Fred glared at the three of them, holding the jar of leeches in his hands. “I – need – to puke.”

“Fred, I need to say something.” Joe told him, taking him aside and letting Fred into what had happened to him.

“Really?” Fred’s eyes widened, “So – what happened to the Crown Jewels?”

They heard the sound of a horse neighing outside and looked out of the window.

The three children had taken a horse and cart and were already leaving the manor grounds. The girl and the magician sat in the cart with a trunk between them, as the ninja rode at the front.

“Whatever happened,” Joe murmured, “those kids know.”

Ten minutes and a lot of blood from the king’s abdomen later, the time mist swirled around the four children and took them back to 2007. The physician hadn’t noticed, having been in the garderobe. He grumbled when he found they had gone. “Children shouldn’t run off in the middle of something important.”

**2007**

“Why did I eat the school’s dip?” Sam groaned, holding his hands over his stomach, “They’re worse than Vicky’s food!”

The six of them were standing out of the way of everyone else, as loud, boisterous music played from speakers. None of them were dressed for the occasion, only wearing their normal, everyday clothes.

When they had come back, Jodie had told them that Sam was acting weird and was collapsed on an armchair in the auditorium. But by the time they had gone down, Sam was up and behaving like his normal, weird self.

“Oh, don’t start!” Joe begged, “I can’t look at mince pies the same way again.”

“So, Sam,” Freddi asked, “What were you doing in the science lab?”

“I…I actually have no clue,” Sam blinked rapidly as he tried to think, “My mind’s swimming around. I remember coming through the school gates, but it’s just blurry until the bell went for the end of the day.”

“Whatever it was,” Jodie sipped at her punch, “you seemed very passionate about the whole thing.”

Fred snorted. “That makes sense.”

Unbeknownst to any of them, the janitor was cleaning up outside the nurse’s office. He went inside and turned on the light to try and clean up inside. Noticing two feet sticking out from under the cot, he almost jumped when he pulled out the body of Mrs Tanner. Although what had strangled her was gone, the marks around her neck indicated that it had been done by somebody very strong.

Certainly not a child.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gemma was a real fifteenth-century name. Dante's wife had this name.
> 
> There will be one more chapter after this before the climax begins.

**1st July 2007**

“I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well at your house, Sam,” Joe said as he flopped onto the couch, “I didn’t hear you snore once.”

Sam glared at him. “I do not snore,” he retorted.

Joe snickered, putting his arms behind his head, “Sure, and I can’t play card tricks.”

“You can’t.” Sam answered bluntly.

“Fred, back me up on this. Does Sam snore?” Joe asked.

Fred, who had been standing by the fireplace, instead rubbed his arm nervously.

“Fred, you’re being unusually quiet today,” Joe sat up straight, “Something the matter?”

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Fred tried to smile but it was obvious that he was in pain, “I – I’m just fine.”

“You’re not,” Sam insisted, getting up from the couch and going over, “You can tell us.”

“I’m OK,” Fred mumbled, turning away suddenly and walking back upstairs.

“What’s rattled _him_?” Joe stood up and looked in the direction his friend had gone.

Sam looked up the stairs after Fred. “I’m not sure,” he mumbled as the doorbell rang and Joe’s mom entered, “See you later.”

Later, Sam was at the diner when he saw Fred and Samantha walking in. “Hey, guys!” he waved from his booth as they came up.

“Hi, great-grandfather,” Samantha giggled, “Feel any better?”

“Any better?” Sam hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.

“The eye problem? The way you were acting nuts the day of the prom?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam rubbed the back of his neck, “No. It hasn’t happened again.”

“Didn’t Uncle Joe try to help?” Samantha asked, “If it’s serious, it’s my existence on the line.”

Despite the circumstances, Sam managed a small smirk. “No need to be melodramatic.” Then he looked over at Fred. “Feeling better, then?”

Fred nodded, but didn’t say anything.

He saw that Samantha had her version of the Book with her and was skimming through.

“Samantha, what are you looking at?” he asked, curiously. She looked up from the section on famous inventions and pointed.

“Da Vinci. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

Fred’s eyes widened as he saw time mist seeping out from the Book. As they were whisked away, he grumbled, “Why does this always happen when we’re in this booth?”

**1500**  
**Florence, Italy**

The three of them landed with a crash on what they hoped was a bench.

“This is da Vinci’s workshop,” Samantha leaned forward and adjusted her glasses, “Right in the heart of the Renaissance! Isn’t it amazing?”

“Please get off my spine.” Fred muttered.

“Oh, sorry,” Samantha blushed as she quickly stood up. Fred pulled himself up as Sam slowly did so next to him.

“Well, let’s go see da Vinci,” Samantha held the Book close, “We have a time machine inside a book. Why can’t we go to these places?”

“Have you been eating sugar again?” Sam murmured as they began walking over.

“Sorry, great-grandfather.” Samantha teased.

Knocking on the back door, Sam looked about. When da Vinci slowly opened the door, he cried out, “Hello, Samantha! I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Sure, da Vinci,” she shook his hand, “Just popped in to say hello.”

“Hello? What does that mean?” da Vinci looked confused.

Sam whispered to Samantha, “That word won’t be used as a greeting for nearly four hundred years.”

Samantha put a hand up. “Oh, never mind. Can we come in?”

“Sure,” da Vinci let them in, “but do not touch anything. I am working on something for…I cannot say.”

“The Borgias?” Fred asked.

Da Vinci went pale, even underneath that huge beard. He sighed. “Yes. But do not say!”

When the three children had gone into the dining room, da Vinci came up behind them. “Ah, scusi, can one of you go out and buy some food? My – my apprentices are sick today.”

“I’ll do it,” Samantha rolled her eyes, shoving the Book in Fred’s chest, “Do something close to peaceful.”

She picked up a basket and went outside. It was fascinating, strolling through historic marketplaces. Usually she didn’t get that much of a chance. Not since the incident with Jodie, sacred chickens and the bear.

At the final stall on the list da Vinci had given her, the basket nearly full with items, she looked at the fruits laid out. The sun was going down and everyone was closing up.

“Can I have some lemons, please?” she asked.

The girl behind the stall, who didn’t look much older than Samantha, handed them over. “These are expensive, mind,” she pointed out, “don’t waste them.”

“I won’t.” Samantha promised. It was amazing the things they took for granted in the twenty-second century.

Samantha thanked the girl behind the market stall, putting the lemons into the basket. Before she was about to go, Samantha saw that the girl had gone completely still. Then she bowed her head for a moment.

“Is – is something wrong?” Samantha carefully put a hand forward, only for the girl’s head to rise back up. As Samantha recoiled, she noticed that the girl’s eyes had gone from blue to green.

Remembering the incident in Virginia, all she managed to stammer was, “Faith?”

The market girl looked about, nervously, before running out from behind the stall and into the crowd.

“Hey! Come back!” Samantha yelled after her, dodging carts and jumping over crates as the girl moved towards the docks.

Elbowing her way through the crowd, Samantha called out, “Faith!” Soon, she saw the girl running up a gangplank and onto a boat.

As Samantha came closer, she saw two boys on either side of the girl. One boy was also Italian, the other dark-skinned, possibly a Moor. They were both barefoot. All three were holding wooden caskets and were about to descend the stairs through a trapdoor.

Then Samantha saw an old woman shouting from the dock. She seemed to be pleading. “Gemma,” she looked up, “please, come back! Why are you going off with those boys?”

The girl looked back at the woman for a second, before the Moor pulled on her elbow and took her below decks. Samantha watched as the woman – presumably Gemma’s grandmother – began to sob into her hands.

Samantha cautiously made her way over, before she asked, “Excuse me, ma’am? Did – Gemma – act oddly in the last twenty-four hours?”

The old woman looked up at Samantha as if she were crazy. Then she shook her head.

“Not in a long time. I was working in Florence three years ago when she suddenly left the house during the night. Didn’t return for four days. I was out of my mind with worry. Then when she came back, she said that she had no idea what had happened. I was convinced she was bewitched.”

Samantha tried a different question. “Bewitched, you say? Were her eyes glowing green?”

The old woman looked at Samantha suspiciously. “Yes. Yes, she was. I took her to the priest and she had an exorcism. When she placed her head inside a font and didn’t burn, we knew she was better.” Then she started wailing loudly. “The devil has gotten her again!”

Samantha asked a nearby porter (at least, she assumed it was a porter) for the name of the ship. The _Dutch Maria_ , she learnt.

Then Samantha looked down at her basket, held underneath her t-shirt. The apples were bruised and the peaches were squashed. Da Vinci was not going to be pleased.

 

When she returned, da Vinci was trying to paint inside his studio. Sam and Fred were stirring buckets of who knew what and trying not to look bored.

“You know, painting with one of the Old Masters does not seem as great as I thought it would go.” Sam whispered to Fred.

Samantha placed the groceries on the floor and headed over to the boys. “Fred, Sam, you need to listen. I think I saw –“

Sam held a hand to his forehead before she could tell them what had happened. “Guys, I feel a bit dizzy,” he murmured, as his vision started to blur and he felt wobbly.

Falling backwards a little, Fred caught him. “Do you want to go upstairs?” Fred asked. Sam just groaned loudly.

“I’d say we have to.” Samantha opened the door for them. Fred lifted Sam’s arm over his shoulder and helped him inside. By now, Sam was turning green and holding his stomach.

“Hey! Don’t get vomit on my sketches!” da Vinci shouted as the three of them walked through his studio.

“Sorry, da Vinci!” Samantha called as the two of them helped Sam into the guest bedroom. Sam lay on the bed, holding his head and stomach and moaning.

Fred was about to ask how bad it was when Sam’s eyelids fluttered open.

“Water?” he croaked, but all Fred focused on were the pinprick-sized green circles in his friend’s eyes.

“Sam, your eyes…” he began. Sam just sank back into the mattress.

Sleepily, he replied, “ It’s fine, Fred. It only lasts…ten minutes…”

Sam’s head rolled to the side and he started to snore softly. Samantha and Fred shared a worried look.

Fred frowned.

“What is it?” Samantha asked.

“I – well, last night –“ he rubbed his arm and looked down at the ground.

Samantha crossed her arms. “Fred, you tell me right now.”

“When we had a slumber party last night, Sam was sleepwalking,” Fred told her, “He was in the middle of opening the desk drawer when I turned him around. He just frowned and closed his eyes again. Then he woke up. I know you shouldn’t wake a sleepwalker, but I honestly don’t think I did. It was like he _noticed_ me. And…” He paused.

“What?”

“His…the way he looked at me,” Fred shivered as he remembered, “He looked furious. I didn’t say that of course. I knew he must have been dreaming. But in that split second, Sam was staring right at me and he was angry. And that scared me.”

Samantha looked at her twelve-and-a-half-year-old great-grandfather lying on the bed, his eyes partially closed. She then gabbled, “I saw a bucket of water by the fireplace. I’ll get a cloth and rub his forehead.”

 

Twenty minutes later, Samantha went back downstairs when da Vinci yelled that the groceries were squashed.

The market stalls were closed so they couldn’t get any more. Da Vinci said something about annoying guests and asked Fred to help him chop wood in the garden.

When Samantha had gone back to the guestroom, she saw that Sam was awake.

Sam stared out of the window onto Florence below. He was strumming the fingers of his right hand on the stone windowsill, his nails clacking softly.

“Sam?” Samantha asked him.

“I’m busy,” he told her calmly.

With his left hand, he grabbed out at the window latch. It seemed as if he was dizzy, since his hand kept slipping. Concerned, Samantha moved forward to grab him.

“Get off!” he shouted, pushing her aside. He glared at Samantha as she stepped backwards cautiously. His expression mixed to go from anger to agony to longing, so quickly that Samantha wondered if he was ill. He must be, she thought, if he acting up earlier. She wasn’t close enough to him to see tiny green pinpricks glowing inside his eyes.

“Sam? Are you –“ she started, but he looked away.

“Just get out of here!” he yelled.

“Sam –“

“NOW!”

Samantha didn’t look away as she went over to the door and slowly closed it behind her.

 

Later, Fred sat on the chair opposite Sam’s bed. Sam hadn’t woken again. Samantha had gone back downstairs to help carry wood for the fireplace, saying that Sam was awake again and shouting.

For hours, he lay on top of the bed, rolling around and scowling in his sleep. Sometimes his eyes opened, the little green dots flickering, mumble and fall asleep again.

When he went up at about midnight, Fred wondered if they should tell Uncle Joe. They definitely needed to if this problem carried on.

Fred got up from the chair and then sat at the end of the bed. Taking a deep breath, he began to speak. “Sam, I – I hope you get better soon. I wouldn’t know what to do if something bad happened to you. I – I’ve liked you ever since I saw you during that first day at pre-k. And if the girls are right, we stay friends for the rest of our lives. Plus, we can time travel, so who knows how long that will be.

“I – recently, and I don’t know if it’s me talking or the fact that I’m going through puberty and I’m getting confused about things – I’ve started to – look at you differently. You’re not just the silly, geeky kid I tease and tackle. I want to take care of you when you get hurt. I want to protect you when you’re in trouble. I mean, I crossed the Nevada desert to find you in the Great Depression. I – sometimes I think that – gosh, how do I say this? Sometimes, I feel as if I want to spend my life with you. Move in with you and be – be more than friends.

“But then I see Samantha and Freddi and know that that can’t happen. We’re going to marry their great-grandmothers. We’re each going to have kids. And – and that breaks my heart, Sam.”

 

After another hour of simply sitting there, Fred went down to see if there was anything he could eat. Pop-Tarts hadn’t been invented yet, but surely he’d find something. This was Italy.

But when he had chewed on a bread roll and started to go upstairs, he saw a light flickering in the dining room.

Opening the door, Fred saw Sam in the armchair by da Vinci’s fireplace. He seemed to be smiling at Fred. Except that it wasn’t much of a smile since he was glowering at the same time.

“Ah, Fred. Nice to finally see you up.” Sam relaxed back into the chair, his right hand curled around the end of the arm.

“Up? It’s past midnight, dude.” Fred stood by the mantelpiece as he looked at his friend with uncertainty. “Are you – are you feeling better?”

Sam smiled. “Of course, Fred. If I wasn’t, would I be talking to you?” Then he picked up a tankard from the floor. “Drink, Fred?”

“Sam, that’s alcoholic!” Fred paced forward and snatched it from him. Sam didn’t try to take it back. Instead, he scowled and crossed his arms.

Fred thought that he preferred Sam to be asleep. He stepped back, a little cautiously. Sam appeared to take this in stride, crossing his legs and smiling that same smile.

Fred wondered about what he had said earlier. Had Sam heard him? He didn’t really know.

His – he had feelings. Feelings he couldn’t explain. Feelings he…shouldn’t have. Not that Fred was against that sort of relationship, far from it. Whenever he felt this way, thought about Sam – like that – his mind would force him back to visions of Freddi, his mind shouting at him that he couldn’t.

Not out in the open.

No! This was his friend! He couldn’t…he didn’t know if Sam thought the same. It wasn’t right to think of his friend since pre-k like this.

But that look Sam was giving him…that wasn’t a look that Fred had ever seen on his friend’s face before.

Before last night, anyway.

The face of someone who wanted to cause havoc. Of someone who was hiding something.

Sam looked back towards the flames instead of trying to snatch back the tankard. Standing up and holding a poker in his hand, he started tapping one of the logs. Holding his other hand behind his back, he asked Fred, “Do you know how much information the Book can give someone?”

“What do you mean?” Fred carefully set the tankard down on the floor and went to stand beside his friend. Sam didn’t turn his head, only carried on spearing loose bits of wood.

“It’s a very intriguing read, Fred,” his friend replied, “But it carries a few problems. For one, it leaves open the possibility for attack if we stay near it too long.”

“From Mad Jack?” Fred asked.

Sam stopped prodding. He slowly took the poker out and lowered it into a bucket of water beside the fireplace. Wordlessly, he turned his head towards his friend and then smiled sweetly.

“That could be one consequence, Fred.” He then did something that Fred would never have seen coming.

Sam held his hand out and squeezed Fred’s tight, chuckling and pushing his glasses up. As Fred looked deeper into his friend’s eyes, somehow comfortable with what Sam was doing, he saw the dancing flames mirrored in his glasses.

And beyond that, he could see tiny green pinpricks.

“Sam, you’re not well,” Fred pulled away, angrily, “You need to go to bed.”

Sam didn’t do anything for a brief moment. But then he turned around and walked up the stairs, his hand sliding up the handrail. At the top of the stairs, he spoke without turning around.

“I’ll remember this night, Fred.”

It didn’t sound comforting. Was Sam warning him? Threatening him?

Fred didn’t want to know. Instead he walked into the garden outside.

The sooner they got away from Italy, the better.

He didn’t know what time it was when he finally trudged up the stairs again and fell asleep in the chair, but sunlight streamed in, hitting his eyes.

Sam was already up, he noticed happily, and was eating a pomegranate on the bed.

“Sam, you’re okay.” Fred sat up.

Sam smiled at him and swallowed some pomegranate. “Guess I am. Just needed some sleep, that’s all. Helped me, all right. I haven’t slept like that in months. Look, I’ve been putting it off and I really think we should ask for help at the Time Agency.”

“I guess you’re right,” Fred murmured, “We should better set off soon.”

He didn’t want to tell him about the complete nightmare that had happened.

 

**1st July 2007**

Arriving back at the diner, Fred told the both of them to go to the Time Agency as soon as possible.

“Of course,” Sam leaned forward and touched Fred’s hand, “I’ll be fine.”

Fred recoiled, grabbing his hand, as if Sam were a poisonous snake. Sam held onto the Book, confused, perhaps hurt.

“I – sorry. I –“ Fred sighed. He couldn’t find the words. Walking out of the diner, he didn’t look back as his friends went to the Time Agency.

 

**Time Agency**

In the Time Agency, Uncle Joe sat on the opposite side of the bars as he saw his brother sitting on his bunk. He’d been putting off seeing him, but he decided to go down anyway. He still felt for him, despite everything his brother had done.

“If it isn’t brother dear,” Mad Jack snarled, “You finally come to see me.”

“I wanted to ask you something,” Uncle Joe sat up straight in his chair, “Are you up to something?”

Mad Jack seemed alarmed, but then frowned at his brother. “Why would you ask?”

“Because it’s been six months almost and you haven’t even tried to escape. Every time we got captured as kids, you fought tooth and nail to get out. Why haven’t you tried now?”

“Maybe because there’s nowhere out in this astral plane that I can go,” Mad Jack crossed his arms and leant back, sneering, “Didn’t you think about that?”

Uncle Joe sighed. “You haven’t even asked how our sister is.”

“She’s grown up now, isn’t she? I wouldn’t know her.” Mad Jack acted as if this meant nothing to him. “I know she gave birth to my annoying relatives.”

Then he smiled again. “How are the little pests?”

“Joe is growing up nicely,” Uncle Joe scowled back at his brother, “Anna is the same as ever.”

“They’re growing up so fast, aren’t they?” Mad Jack seemed to be thinking. Whether he was imagining strangling Joe or reminiscing when he saw Samantha grown up, Uncle Joe didn’t want to know.

Then Mad Jack said, “Of course, they’ll be disappointed when they grow up. The boys are going to end up with Mrs Robinson, Ursa Major and River Song as their spouses.” He chuckled nastily.

Uncle Joe stood up. “Vanessa is not ugly. She just has a few moles.”

Mad Jack snorted. “A few? I had fewer blemishes when I had chicken pox! And she never brushes that tangled mane.”

“Sam is going to love her regardless,” Uncle Joe was fed up of having to yet again deal with his psychopathic brother, “And Faith is not a murderer.”

“She and Fred meet in the wrong order,” Mad Jack retorted, “and you know her past as well as I do. Sounds like the _Doctor Who_ character to me.”

Uncle Joe began to walk out of the room. Mad Jack’s eyes followed him, the smile never leaving his face.

_Oh, soon, brother dear,_ he felt the warm glow of happiness flow through him, _You’ll know in time. And I’ll get both of you._

 

Uncle Joe had been wondering for a time about the research the children had been doing with the crystal balls and on the information records inside the headquarters. When he had bumped into Fred once, the boy had said something about a girl with green eyes at night.

Remembering the part in the Book about Time Possession, Uncle Joe had thought about what the answer may be.

He had the names written down and thought about one place he had almost come across.

A very long time ago...when he was only a child...

Outside the Time Agency, in the Himalayan mountains, he had seen an entrance to another area outside of time. He hadn't questioned the other Time Agents about it, but when he had pointed it out, they ushered him back inside quickly. Later, Hedgewing had confided in Uncle Joe that there was one other Time Agent aside from Mad Jack that had found fault with them.

Then, when the Time Agents swooped in, the fugitive had managed to close off the portal. The footage collected from the agents' time-travel devices (a brooch and a hairslide, respectively) was caught in the crystal ball.

Apparently, the fugitive Time Agent had been backing away while performing a spell that would seal off the portal. But behind him had been three very scared children. From the footage, Uncle Joe guessed that maybe they had been four years old. One was blonde, one was dark-haired and one was red-haired and they were all in pyjamas. The red-haired one had called the fugitive 'daddy'.

Once the portal had been sealed, that was the last anyone had seen of him.

But Uncle Joe had had an inkling, soon after defeating his brother. He had gone to places where the links between planes was thin. The Bermuda Triangle was closest geographically, so Uncle Joe had examined out at sea. Now, he was there again, as the waves washed away in a spiral, stone steps appearing beneath him.

Cautiously, Uncle Joe pressed his pen to send off a signal just in case, before slipping downward.

To his surprise, the inside of this building resembled a youth club or summer camp. The neat walls, the polished floors and the electric lighting, if rather faint, made it seem a complete opposite to the ominous-looking stairs.

Opening a door, he found himself on a balcony, looking down inside a gym with a polished wooden floor.

The gym was empty save for four people; an instructor wearing tai-kwon-doe robes and three children wearing exactly the same. Uncle Joe couldn’t see the children very clearly, but he guessed they were about the same age as his nephew, possibly twelve or thirteen years old.

The children wore had their hair in long plaits and had on clothing that looked a little unsuitable for this type of exercise. The redhead wore a grey tunic and sandals, the black-haired child had on a brown tunic without any footwear and the blonde – who also had the longest plait – had on a brown woollen dress and cloth shoes.

The instructor then shouted, “Okay! Positions!”

The three girls stood in the starting positions, one foot back and one fist out.

“Fight!”

The redhead moved first, but the man blocked every punch. The redhead then attacked from behind, digging her hands together in a fist onto the instructor’s upper back, sending him to the ground.

A gong sounded from somewhere, causing Uncle Joe to jump and nearly give himself away. The redhead moved to the side and stood still, arms at the sides. The black-haired student now raced forward, jumping with one foot stretched outward.

Uncle Joe was surprised at how this child fought. He – as Uncle Joe could now see that both the redhead and the black-haired child were boys – must have been training all his life. Uncle Joe didn’t think he could name any adults who were as capable as this.

The instructor had nearly been beaten black and blue by this point, but even as the gong sounded and he wobbled to his feet, he took up the position and called for the blonde, the only girl, to fight.

She was sloppy and it wasn’t because she was wearing a dress. He grabbed her by the waist and flipped her over onto the mat. He then kicked her in the face. The boys did not react.

“Very bad,” the man muttered, “A beaten man was able to fight you. Remember, if you are wearing a dress or robes, aim for the legs. Not everyone in the past is kind to a woman, but they do underestimate women.”

The girl, cheek starting to turn red, pushed herself up.

“Now, again.”

He grabbed the girl by the upper arm and started leading her away. She lifted up one leg and kicked him in the thighs. The instructor grumbled, letting go of her. She then sat on top of his chest, pinning his arms to the ground.

The gong sounded and she stood up.

The instructor smiled, impressed. “Whenever a man underestimates a woman, he finds himself beaten. That is the end of class today.”

The three students stood in a row again and bowed, before the man bowed back.

This was a very strange class, Uncle Joe thought.

Uncle Joe looked down the hallway. It didn’t seem to be a prison, as he had thought. The floor had a blue carpet and there were no locks on the doors. Deciding to look inside the rooms opposite him, he hoped that no-one would be there and startle him.

The first room read the name ‘Faith’ drawn on the white wooden door with purple felt tip. Inside the room lay a bed with a pink duvet, pink curtains across a high window, a bookcase filled with old-looking, well-thumbed books and a desk.

But what stood out about this room that made it different from any girl’s room Uncle Joe had seen were the titles on the thick, leather-bound books. Historical accounts of famous disasters. Of famous places. Of everyday life in many different time periods; Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Chinese, Byzantine, Ottoman, Antebellum America.

A desk drawer held a flurry of old maps, yellowed and curling at the edges. Another held video cassettes of historical documentaries. A third was stuffed to the brim with drawings of old vehicles, drawings of clothing from various eras and thesauruses filled with old-fashioned words and phrases.

If it wasn’t for the bed and the fact that there was cookie crumbs on the floor, Uncle Joe would have assumed this bedroom belonged to a college professor or an archaeologist. This room belonged to no ordinary thirteen-year-old girl.

The next room had the name ‘Gary’ written on with green felt tip. The decoration inside definitely appeared to belong to a child this time, with two cupboards built into the walls with dart marks over them. But this still stuck out like a sore thumb.

This desk had drawings of weapons; pikes, knives, flintlock pistols, bows and arrows. Black belts for karate and Brazilian ju-jitsu hung on the wall next to cutlasses, knives and clubs. A wooden staff was perched by the window.

The video cassettes in this boy’s desk were of sports tournaments and exercise videos, although there were a few on sports history or military history. Some toy soldiers were lined up on shelves inside a cupboard. But these were no ordinary boyhood games. Instead, they were positioned attacking the walls of Troy, or at the Bastille or the Romans attacking Jerusalem. Another was of a sixteenth-century wooden fort. The bottom shelf contained a German castle surrounded by Allied troops.

These weren’t for play. These were for studying. It was the same with the toy ships in the next cupboard. Uncle Joe recognised the _Flor de la Mar_ , Captain Kidd’s ship the _Adventure Galley_ and the lost ship _HMS Erebus_ , next to Greek and Roman ships.

The third room, perhaps, was the eeriest of all.

The name ‘Joshua’ was scrawled outside in dark blue felt tip, but that was where the childishness ended. Next to the bed lay a book on defensive magic. As Uncle Joe peered at the books on this shelf, he recognised many of them as copies from the Time Agency.

Both white and black magic were detailed in these books. The only person Uncle Joe had seen perform most of the more difficult spells was his brother. It terrified Uncle Joe to think that a child could be harnessing this magic.

The pictures on the desk were all drawings of executions. Of men and women being hanged, burned, drowned, for witchcraft. Maybe these pictures were a warning that this boy should be careful.

More restful images, of Native American, Egyptian and Chinese magic, were scattered through the room. There were also a few books that weren’t about magic. These ones were of Native Americans, Incans, tribes from deepest Africa. The words ‘fit in’ were plastered on them with sticky tape.

This was too creepy for Uncle Joe. He took out his pen and concentrated on going to his nephew’s house.

**1st July 2107**

Samantha looked up the name of the ship. A Dutch ship, as she had expected, it had sunk in a storm after leaving Florence, in November of 1500. It had stopped off one more time in a dock a mile south of the city, before it was hit by lightning that night. Survivors recalled that they had seen two of the sailors, as well as a presumed smuggled civilian, stand absolutely still in the storm, before panicking. The survivor saw them being washed away by a large wave.

Yet another death linked to the mysterious children.

She'd find out one day, Samantha promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story took longer than expected. I might need a rest for a couple of days after writing this chapter. The eighth chapter will partially take place in January 2008, whereas chapters nine and ten will be only a week after this one.
> 
> A small bit of advice for listening to music to inspire writing: Never listen to _Hellfire_ when writing fanfiction.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mystery of what happened to the Heirloom Seal of the Realm is a very puzzling one, hindered by the fact that there is no confirmed date of disappearance. I have taken a few liberties with this story.
> 
> Although Emperor Li Congke is not said to have had a daughter named Ling, I believe that he did have one daughter whose name is lost to history. I do not know her name, only that she was still young and lived with him when he and his family were killed in January AD 937.
> 
> Chapters Nine and Ten will take place before this one, meaning that this chapter is the last chronologically.

**27th January 2008**

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Anna pirouetted wearing her Chinese dress she had gotten for her tenth birthday. “Joe?” she teased, grabbing onto the end of his bed and pulled away his graphic novel.

He scowled at her. “Yes, now go away.” He went back to reading.

“Just because you received the Book for your tenth birthday doesn’t mean that mine isn’t as good.” Anna crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

“I know, Anna,” he groaned.

“By the way, Samantha and Freddi are downstairs. They’ve been there for ten minutes.”

“What!” Joe sat up, “And you didn’t tell me?”

“You didn’t listen to my recital.” Anna held her arms behind her back and tilted, smiling sweetly.

Joe rolled his eyes and stormed out of his room and raced down the stairs.

“I’m really sorry,” he managed to stammer, almost tripping as he ran, “Anna was being annoying.”

“It’s fine,” Freddi replied, sitting on the arm of the couch and kicking her legs, although she didn’t sound fine, “Do you want to hang out here?”

“It’s weird, you know,” Joe told them later as they watched a movie about the Great Wall and Samantha was making popcorn, “You never want to explore our time?”

“I wanted to, first couple of times,” Freddi explained, “And Fred sometimes wants to see Richard back in the Edwardian Era.”

Joe chuckled. “I still haven’t forgiven him for dressing as the princes.”  
Freddi let out a cute giggle. Joe just glared at her.

“You know, we actually saw the Great Wall being built,” Samantha said to Joe as she walked back into the room, setting the bowl of popcorn down on the table, “But since the rules were that if anybody refused to work on the Wall then they would be executed, we had to take part. Jodie broke several nails and wouldn’t stop complaining. Honestly, it’s amazing the two of you are related.”

As Joe mumbled something about the fact he couldn’t believe it either, he saw time mist surrounding the three of them.

“What now?” he groaned, “Have you got the Book in here?”

“Well I couldn’t leave it in the bathroom!” Freddi shrieked over the noise as the three of them were pulled back in time.

**16th December AD 936, China**

They appeared, not on the Great Wall itself, but in a Chinese garden. For a moment, Joe thought that they had been sucked to the Time Agency. Then he realised that there was actually sunlight out here.

“Where have we landed now?” he asked.

Samantha opened the Book, which had landed next to her on a very spiky-looking bush. “It says that we’re in China, in the year 936. At present, we’re at the Emperor’s Palace.”

“Anything important going on in China at that point?” Joe helped Freddi out of the other bush, where she had landed upside-down.

“It’s the time known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms,” Samantha read.

“Couldn’t they think of a snappier name?” Joe scoffed.

Samantha smirked. “Now you sound like her. Now, it says we’re in Luoyang, the capital city. It’s the Later Tang dynasty at the moment, which is – comparatively peaceful. The emperor, Emperor Li Congke, is going to be shortly overthrown, so let’s enjoy this trip while we can.”

Then she smiled. “It seems as if a Time Agent is nearby, working for the emperor. An Agent Hailey.” She turned around the Book so Joe and Freddi could see a picture of a thin, Chinese woman standing over a large wooden tub filled with water.

“But we have to be careful,” Samantha closed the Book and hid it under her shirt, “since the last time Hailey saw the Time Agency, it was 1985.”

“What happens to her?” Freddi asked. Time travel was confusing enough.

Samantha shrugged. “Not sure. Let’s get going. We might see her inside.”

Inside the palace, the children couldn’t help but stare around at everything.

Despite everything that the Book said was happening outside, the inside of the palace was still amazing. Bright rugs and carved figurines above entrances stood out the most.

Turning a corner, they accidently bumped into a woman carrying laundry. “Oh, sorry!” Samantha gabbled and knelt down to pick it up when she took a good look at the woman.

“Agent Hailey?” she asked.

Hailey narrowed her eyes and pulled a small dagger hidden beneath her tunic. “Who wishes to know?” she asked, hiding most of the knife inside her palm, ready to attack.

“I’m Joseph Arthur’s nephew,” Joe gabbled, “I know that – well, you probably know him as a kid, but I – I’m from 2008.”

“Joseph Arthur?” Hailey suspiciously questioned him. “Then what is your name?”

“Joe.” He replied quickly.

Hailey rolled her eyes. “Honestly! You never have any imagination. Then again, all Time Agents are bonkers. When I first arrived here, I had a collection of skulls. Had to leave it back at the Time Agency, mind.” Then she paused. “Are you here because of Emperor Li Congke?”

“No, we were watching a movie about China,” Freddi answered. Joe nodded.

Hailey sighed, wistfully. “I miss television. Let me tell you, it’s boring doing nothing but make silk, paper or clothes for a thousand years.”

The three stared at her in astonishment. “You’re over a thousand?” Samantha gasped.

Hailey picked up the laundry as she explained to them.

“A few Time Agents were sent to keep an eye on entire histories of a country or empire. Agent Nathaniel went to Ancient Egypt, from the Scorpion King to Cleopatra. Agent Yves went to the early days of Rome and stayed there until it fell. Agent Frannie went to England at the time of Alfred the Great and if I’m right, she’s still there in your time, Joe. As for me, I first came here when Emperor Qi unified China in 221 BC.”

“But how do you stay the same age?” Freddi asked in bewilderment.

Hailey gave a small smile, which faded almost instantly. “We all had to take a potion before we left. In the part of the pool where the willow branches touch the water, if we add the potion and bathe and drink from it, we can live for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. But it only happens if we don’t time-travel after we re-enter time. If we do, it stops and we begin ageing again.”

This was absolutely fascinating for the children. Joe wondered if this was right at the back of the Book, in the section that Uncle Joe wouldn’t let him touch. If it was in the Book at all. This seemed like an incredibly powerful potion.

“Are there any others?” he found himself asking. It was the only question he could get out of his mouth without stumbling over his tongue.

Hailey started walking down the corridor. The three children followed her. “Five more. Agent Gwendoline arrived in North Carolina with the rest of the Roanoke colonists, but she wasn’t there when they disappeared, before you ask. Agent Perry went to Ancient India and he won’t leave until 1947. Agent Henry is in Russia until 1917. Agent Marcia has been in the Levant for nearly two thousand years and she’s not returning until the middle of the twenty-second century. Agent Jean has lived in Germany since the first century and he won’t come home until the Berlin Wall is knocked down.”

This seemed unbelievably impressive to the children. But also extremely lonely.

“But how come people don’t notice that an immortal woman is doing the Emperor’s laundry?” Joe asked her.

Hailey opened a door and walked into a bedroom. “That’s the thing about being a low-ranking servant. No-one takes a second glance at you. As for servants themselves, there’s another spell so that they think we age. And after a while, they think that we are the children of the servant they knew when they were young.”

She sighed. “I have another thousand years of living here, guys. But – I have to tell you something. Not right out in the open. They could be listening.”

“They?” Freddi raised an eyebrow.

Hailey pursed her lips and looked from left to right. “I don’t know who to trust. The – ones that could be anybody.”

Before any of them could leave the room, they saw a girl enter. She was younger than them, maybe ten or eleven years old. She wore a yellow robe on.

“Oh. I see we have new servants,” she looked them up and down, smiling, “I am Princess Ling. But you may not be here for long.”

“Why’s that?” Joe asked her. Ling looked saddened and held her hands together in front of her.

“The war has turned against my father, the Emperor. Even if you stay here instead of running, the next Emperor may make you his servants.”

“Hey, I’m sure that won’t happen,” Joe tried to comfort her, but Samantha shook her head and pointed to the Book underneath her shirt.

Ah. Joe guessed that this was not the case.

Hailey started to walk out quickly and the children followed suit.

Inside the stables, Agent Hailey pretended to be grooming a horse while the children stood around in the stall. It was cramped and smelt, but nobody would hear them.

“If our timelines intersect, then we can send letters in our codes,” Agent Hailey brushed the horse’s tail, “The Silk Road has been extremely useful in this instance. We send them back to the Time Agency, so there should be some left in lockers in 2008.”

“The Time Agency headquarters is just getting more and more confusing.” Freddi muttered to herself.

Hailey carried on. “We have all seemed to notice things, even if they take place centuries apart. But what we focus on are the green-eyed children.”

“Green-eyed children?” Samantha asked, as a collective chill ran down their spines. “Do you mean Faith?”

Hailey stopped brushing for a second and looked puzzled. “Faith?”

“We learnt that one of them might be called Faith,” Samantha explained, “and that there are two boys.”

“That makes sense,” Hailey nodded in agreement, “the reports say that there seem to be three of them. Their eyes –“

“Glow green in moonlight,” Samantha interrupted, “That’s what we’ve heard.”

“Only when the moon is visible and shining,” Hailey told them as she started doing the horse’s mane, “not just any night. Cloudless nights.”

“But what are the children doing?” Joe asked her. He wondered why they hadn’t seen this before in their travels. Even before the girl had introduced herself to Fred nearly a year ago – from his perspective – surely they would have noticed the green eyes?

Hailey sighed. “We believe that it could be the most elaborate heists in history. Ever wanted to know the reason how the Egyptians got the ideas of gods or pyramids? What happened to the treasures inside the Pyramid of Giza? Or what happened to the Olmecs? The Roanoke Colonists?”

“The Princes in the Tower…” Joe muttered.

“That’s right,” Hailey gave a small smile, “We noticed them. I noticed them almost immediately. In 213 BC, one of them hid scrolls inside a pot and buried it inside the Great Wall. I’d gather that these are some texts Emperor Qi ordered destroyed.”

“Have you seen them after that?” Samantha questioned.

“Only once since then. I was in Gansu, way out in the Gobi Desert. Where Yongchang is in your present. We were collecting on the Silk Road. This was in 20 BC. Thirty years earlier, some Roman legionnaires had been defeated at the Battle of Carrhae in modern-day Turkey. Some historians have suggested that the captured Romans were taken to China and some blonde-haired, blue-eyed Chinese in the Gansu province are the children of Romans.”

The three of them stood quietly as they took this in. After a brief silence, Samantha shook her head, murmuring, “Sam would be all over this.”

“What did you see?” Freddi asked Hailey.

“It was during the full moon. Some of the locals – and I honestly believe that the older white men living there were Romans, children – had said that some of their keepsakes from their war days were missing. As was the fifteen-year-old son of one of the soldiers. I tried looking for them, as did the other people in my party, but I only saw a kid by the well. He tried hitting me back, but when he called me a Time Agent, I started panicking. I saw his eyes were bright green in the moonlight and I am certain he would have killed me if a Chinese girl hadn’t persuaded him to leave me.

“The boy said the next day that he was unaware of the previous night. He said that it seemed just like a blur. If you want to know my opinion, I’d say these are crazy archaeologists.”

Joe wondered about this. If this was true, why did they take the bodies of children? Wouldn’t the bodies of soldiers, servants, heck, anyone grown up, be reasonable?

“How old are the children when you see them?” he eventually asked.

“The boy I saw at the Great Wall was probably ten. But my correspondences have said they looked as old as eighteen.”

“What else did they take?” Samantha wondered if somehow this could answer historical questions. Good grief, she was more like Sam than she thought.

Hailey opened the door and led the horse to a nearby trough. “My Indian correspondent said that it had been a while, but he had seen them back in the time of the Vedas, possibly around 3000 BC. He saw them six hundred years ago, working on the Iron Pillar of Delhi. ‘The green eyes’, he told me, ‘green eyes which do not belong to the child they are possessing’.

“Agent Nathaniel said he saw two boys with green eyes breaking into the Great Pyramid. They had been workers there and said that if they were caught, they’d say he was in on the robbery. That was the only reason Nathaniel lived. He saw them again twelve hundred years later, when he was involved in the burial of Tutankhamen’s wife. They had taken the bodies of much older workers, maybe eighteen years old. They didn’t steal anything that time, only marked where the tomb was. They told Nathaniel that they remembered him.

“He saw them again nearly a thousand years after that. But they didn’t know him. Then, after Caesar invaded Egypt, they took works from the Library of Alexandria. They didn’t see him, but he knew that the two boys had a girl with them.”

“Aside from Egypt, where have they been spotted?” Samantha tried her best to remember all of this. At the very least, it was fascinating.

“Agent Marcia saw them a lot,” Hailey took the horse back to the stable and began brushing another one, “First in Cyprus in 1174 BC. Then Ashkelon in the eighth century BC –“

“Where?” Freddi interrupted.

“Israel. Where Philistines lived.” Samantha told her.

Hailey nodded, smiling. “You know your history, girl. Marcia also saw them in Galilee in the first century, then in Jerusalem thirty years later. The strange thing was, when she confronted them in Jerusalem, not only were these little kids instead of the teens she had seen them possess, but they didn’t know her. Marcia hasn’t seen them since, but suspects they might know where the Ark of the Covenant and the Menorah of the Second Temple went.”

“The Covenant? Like in that movie where everyone who saw what was inside melted?” Joe was interested. “How did they move that then?”

“Life isn’t like the movies, Joe.” Samantha rolled her eyes.

“Too true,” Hailey grunted, “I’d have gotten rid of my pockmarks long ago.”

“And did anyone else see them?” Samantha asked.

Hailey tapped her fingers on the wooden stall. “Contact with England and Russia from here is difficult, but I believe that Yves saw them in Etruria, in modern-day Italy, about 650 BC. Then again in Sicily just under a hundred years later, hiding the poet Sappho’s works inside a clay jar and hiding it inside a cave. He wanted to go after them but he couldn’t find the cave again. In the first century BC, they took the lost Sibylline books, he saw the girl feasting in Pompeii just before the eruption and again inside a temple when Rome fell.”

“Do they always take the bodies of children?” Freddi started to worry.

“Depends on what you think of as children. How old are the three of you?”

“We’re thirteen,” Samantha explained, “and Joe’s twelve.”

“The forms they take seem to be aged ten to eighteen. I gather that I may see them again sometime in China’s history. There’s a lot of history here, I can tell you. Listen, I need help with the laundry later. I have a feeling that the children will turn up soon.”

“How?” Samantha asked, as the others nodded in agreement.

Hailey rubbed her arm as she told them. “Last night, I saw a boy from the nearby village here. Sometimes his family have brought food here from the farms. He’s only ten, but quite tall for a boy in this time and place. He was in the Emperor’s bedchamber when Li Congke was in the temple, asking the ancestors for guidance.”

“Why?” Joe raised an eyebrow.

“They all do that here,” Hailey replied, “but the Emperor is worried about being overthrown. Anyway, I saw the boy inside his room and he had something in his hand. I was about to confront him, but he climbed out of the window and over a ten-foot wall as if it were nothing. If you keep an eye out, kids, he might return tonight. The wall he climbed over only goes into the kitchen area. There’s no way out to the world outside. My guess is he hid something here.”

____

 

When Joe and Freddi were downstairs helping Hailey with the laundry, even though Joe said that he’d rather have his nails pulled out, Samantha gave the Book back to him and went back up upstairs. Hailey had asked her to look through the bedrooms, with a wooden tub filled with washing just in case anyone saw her.

Samantha looked about Ling’s room once she entered. She hadn’t seen anyone in most of the other bedrooms she had checked and was getting irritated. Maybe Hailey was just paranoid. Maybe the kids had left.

Then she heard a noise coming from the cupboard. Pausing for a moment, Samantha carefully opened the doors with the tips of her fingers.

As soon as she did, a boy ran out, almost flying over her as he went. When Samantha sharply turned around to see him standing on the table, she saw that he was fairly young, perhaps only one or two years younger than she was.

He was dressed very similar to the servants did, with a brown tunic and trousers. His hair was very scruffy and stuck out everywhere. In fact, he would have looked perfectly ordinary if it were not for one detail. Samantha did not see it until he had stepped off of the table and into the moonlight streaming from the window.

His eyes were a brilliant green hue.

The boy smirked at her, grabbing a coiled rope from the ground and looping it over something outside. He took something green from his other hand, placed it between his teeth and started to slip down the rope.

When Samantha peered outside, as he pulled the rope down, she saw two other figures heading across the courtyard. One was presumably a boy, as he also had short hair. The other was probably a girl, due to her long hair up in a complicated bun. Both of them were quite small.

The boy with green eyes started climbing onto a horse tied up nearby, followed by the other boy, who started helping the girl onto another. After the second boy had untied the horses, he leapt onto the one with the girl and they ran off out through the courtyard gate.

But that wasn’t what surprised Samantha the most. What surprised her the most was that she was certain that the girl had been Ling.

____

 

“Are you certain?” Hailey knelt down in front of Samantha when the girl told her in the gardens.

Samantha nodded, nervously. “She was with two boys. Why –“

“I should have guessed that there would be an insider assisting them,” Hailey clasped a hand to her forehead, “but the Princess Ling? Do you know what the boy was holding?”

Samantha shook her head. Hailey stood up slowly, her eyes wide as she thought. Then, in a low voice, she said, “The Heirloom Seal of the Realm. I should have realised! It was lost sometime in the tenth century. I’ve actually seen it. It was created for Emperor Qi. No-one knows precisely when it vanished, except that it was sometime between 907 and 960, most likely 936.”

Samantha wondered briefly if Hailey was a historian before she took up living as a servant through Chinese history. Maybe that was why she chose this particular country.

“I’ll tell the guards,” Hailey rushed off, “They’ll notice she is gone sometime. It might as well be now.”

____

 

Just after dawn some soldiers entered through the front gates.

Hailey looked up as Joe and Freddi lay on their backs on the wet ground. Freddi was mumbling that if she did any more laundry, her fingers would be so wrinkly that they would drop off.

Hailey eyed the soldiers’ glum faces, told the children to stay right there and followed them at a distance.

Listening outside the doors of the Emperor’s bedroom, she heard a soldier say, “We have found the Third Princess in a forest twenty miles west of here. There was no sign of the boys she was said to be with.”

“Where is she? Why is she not here now?” the Emperor demanded, stoically. Hailey waited with belated breath.

The soldier shook his head. “I am afraid she is dead, Your Majesty. Her body was found by a stream. We believe that she may have been killed by wild animals.”

____

 

Once Hailey had come back down to see the children, their feelings were suddenly on edge. The princess had been killed? Why would anyone bother to possess their bodies and then kill them when finished?

Samantha could only think of Elizabeth and Gemma. Both of them had died, too. But why?

There were still so many questions that remained unanswered.

Joe whispered to the girls as he pulled the Book out from under his shirt. “I think we should go now. We’re not needed here any more.”

They silently waved goodbye to Hailey as the time mist seeped around them and took them away.

**1911**

Since Joe had decided to ask Hailey one more time, and they had no idea what happened to her after she returned to the Time Agency, he had asked the Book to take her to just before she left China.

They were in the Imperial Palace this time, in the Forbidden Kingdom, built a few hundred years after Emperor Li Congke.

Hailey was still in traditional Chinese clothing, but this time she wore a skirt and decorated top. She was sitting on a stone bench as she waved them over.

“Hello, children,” she smirked, “Jim, right?”

“Joe,” he replied, “Joseph Arthur’s nephew?”

“Oh, yes,” she blushed, pulling hair behind her ear, “You haven’t changed in a thousand years.” She giggled.

“Neither have you.” Freddi remarked.

Hailey stood up. “I suppose you’re wondering if I saw the kids again.”

“Have you?” Samantha asked her.

“Oddly enough, despite China’s immense history, I only saw them twice. The first time was in what’s now Mongolia, in 1227. One of them went off with the body of Genghis Khan to take to his tomb.”

Joe gulped as he remembered when he, Sam and Fred had seen Genghis Khan as a child.

“And the other time?” he managed to ask.

“Over a hundred and fifty years later,” Hailey’s eyes looked up as she remembered, “A girl was hiding a text known as the – let me say this clearly – the ‘Hulongjing’, on military tactics. I was going to confront her, but she…spoke to me.”

Hailey placed her hand on the Book, closed her eyes and began muttering. Hailey seemed to glow a faint green as the Book opened in mid-air. Then, when she had finished, she turned around and pulled a thin wand from her shirt.

“I will go back to the Time Agency now,” she said, “What I gave the Book is all I now on the three children. What the girl told me was…odd…”

**2008  
Brooklyn**

When they had arrived back on the couch, Joe opened up the Book. “Let’s see what this says about them.” He muttered as a blurred vision began to appear inside a frame in the page.

_Through Hailey’s eyes, they saw the insides of a temple. Incense burnt in the air as a young woman in a dark blue robe knelt down in front of the tombstones. Her long hair was loose and tumbled down her back. She didn’t seem to have noticed Hailey._

_The young woman, who seemed to be around eighteen years old, placed a large, heavy-looking scroll inside a Ming pot and closed the lid._

_“They won’t find it for six hundred years.” The young woman’s voice made Hailey jump. She then stood up and turned her head to look directly at her._

_“Ling?” Hailey’s quivering voice sounded out._

_The girl smiled for a split second, then answered, “Yes and no. I was Princess Ling. Now I am Mei, a potter’s daughter. Time is funny, don’t you think?”_

_“If you’re going to hurt me –“ Hailey began, but Mei snorted._

_“You can put the dagger down, Time Agent; I will not hurt you. My brothers may say otherwise, though, so I’d get out of here if I were you.” Mei lifted up the pot, groaning as she did so, placing it behind a tombstone._

_“This temple will be sealed off tomorrow night by builders. No-one shall come in here for centuries. Not until Dad says that they can.”  
“Your dad?” Hailey asked, “Is that Andrew?”_

_Mei frowned, cross. “Yes, it is Andrew,” she spoke through gritted teeth, “but I only have four more missions, so pardon me if I am sloppy.”_

_“How many missions have you had?” Hailey tried to sound brave._

_“This is my ninety-ninth expedition through time. I had some bodies more than once. Oh, you would not believe what we have done.” Mei tittered like a child. “I only have a few places left. The Valley of the Kings, medieval Iceland, Renaissance Italy and Washington D.C.”_

_“And after that?” Hailey interrogated._

_Mei shrugged. “We do not know. But my brothers and I do know that you’ve recorded all of this in your lockers at the Time Agency. So you’ll be able to plot our points. It matters not, since our journey is almost complete. I will miss going to strange lands, though.”_

_“What’s your real name?” Hailey demanded. “I know you possessed Ling. Like you’re possessing Mei.”_

_“Possession?” Mei almost laughed, “If we were possessing them, we would have glowing, green pinpricks inside their pupils. Take a good look, Time Agent. Our irises change, dummy.”_

_Hailey squinted as she looked into Mei’s eyes. True to her word, they were the same colour as the time mist._

_“Then,” Hailey faltered, “how did you take over their bodies?”_

_The sound of beating horses came from outside the temple. Mei turned her head to the source of the noise and frowned at Hailey. “You should get out of here. But, before you go, I just want to pass on a message.”_

_“I’m not your errand girl!” Hailey snapped, “Do it yourself!”_

_“I can’t time-travel the same way you can,” Mei groaned, “And you come from the Time Agency as well. I don’t know if I’ll can deliver the message before we stop.”_

_“What is it, then?” Hailey almost snapped._

_Mei gulped and then looked sorrowfully at Hailey._

_“Tell Fred that I love him.”_


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Galloway hoard is a real archaeological discovery, by the way. No-one knows who buried it, but I found it interesting that random objects from across the Viking's known world was seemingly abandoned.

**1st August 2007**

Summer vacation had gone well so far.

The boys went to Coney Island and out to Long Island with Fred’s family. The girls hadn’t dropped by, but sometimes it could be several days before they’d come over.  
They weren’t sure about travelling anywhere anytime soon. Joe kept the Book in his bedside drawer and didn’t even look at it.

Joe celebrated his twelfth birthday at his house. The boys could hardly believe that it had been two years since they had first travelled in time. They had done so much.  
But when Joe was lying in bed, only a few days later, he heard Uncle Joe speaking to him in a dream.

“ _Joe,_ ” he had hurriedly told him, “ _I need you to come to the Time Agency immediately. Please, I need to talk to you. It’s – it’s Mad Jack. He’s – well, I’m not entirely sure if he’s doing what I think he’s up to. But I have to see you. Bring the Book._ ”

Joe had woken up when his dream had finished.

But the problem was that he didn’t have the Book with him. Sam and Fred did, after inviting the girls to camp with them when Fred’s family went back to Long Island.

 

In a campsite in Long Island, Sam and Fred sat in their tent, as Jodie and Freddi sniggered at Mike’s feeble attempt to cook using a microwave plate. Samantha couldn’t come as she had an annoying summer cold, but the four of them were content enough.

“Thanks for inviting us,” Jodie smiled, drawing her legs up by her chest, “This was a much better idea than going back to the South Pole.”

Sam pulled the Book from inside his sleeping bag, asking, “What’s camping like in the twenty-second century?”

Freddi muttered something about Lewis and Clark. Sam regretted asking.

Opening the Book again, he asked, “Right, should we get going before Fred’s parents come back?”

“Sure.” Freddi reached forward to type in a date, but the wind suddenly swirled around them.

 

**AD 1009  
Scotland**

Jodie wasn’t sure where they had expected to end up. Inside a field filled with sheep was not what she would have chosen. Still, she told herself, it’s better than No Man’s Land. Or the Great Depression.

She saw Freddi and Sam standing on either side of her. Slowly, she asked, “Wait? Where’s Fred?”

“In here!” a voice cried out from between Sam’s arms. Sam almost dropped the Book in shock, but he opened it quickly.

Fred looked out from a picture, just as Sam had done in medieval China, over a year ago from their perspective. He glared as he tried to reach outside of the box, nearly shouting, “Why am I in here?”

“I’m not sure,” Freddi gabbled, “But we’ll get you out. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry?” Fred snapped. “The last time this happened, Sam almost burnt alive.”

“Don’t remind me,” Sam muttered, but Jodie took over.

“Look, Fred, just stay put –“

“I can’t _go_ anywhere!”

“Just stop whining. We’ll fix this.” Jodie shut the Book instantly and started looking about herself.

“There’s a Viking longboat down there,” Sam pointed some way off, to a small beach, “So this is probably the Viking Age.”

“And that’s a church over there,” Freddi pointed in another direction, “so it could be outside of Scandinavia.”

Jodie groaned, crossing her arms. “Let’s just find a way out of here.” She murmured.

 

Inside the Book, Fred could only see darkness. He knew that he shouldn’t be scared of the dark. But being stuck inside a book which held the space-time continuum was not how he wanted to spend his time.

How did Sam manage it last time?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bright green light. Turning his head, Fred noticed it seemed to resemble a twinkling star. He didn’t go near it, just in case. He held his upper arms and only stared.

Then he saw someone come out of the green star. A tall, thin woman with dusky blonde hair. She wore a bright pink nightgown, the sort that his mother sometimes wore to bed. She seemed to maybe be in her late thirties.

Before Fred could say anything, the woman took his hand. She was unbelievably soft and eerily calm.

“G-Get off me!” Fred shouted, but no matter how hard he struggled, the woman did not seem to have any trouble pulling him towards the star.

Then a strange, warm feeling encompassed his whole body. He hadn’t gone inside the star, but she had.

As Fred peered closer at the star, it seemed to turn into the sort of images he would normally see in a kaleidoscope. They dispersed quickly and Fred found himself staring at a girl sitting on a wooden swing.

This girl wore a dark purple skirt and sleeveless top and her blonde hair was ridiculously long, in a plait that touched the ground below her. Two boys stood nearby, playing with wooden swords. One had red hair, the other had black hair. Their hair was also too long. Maybe even longer than Freddi’s.

They were not outside, as Fred would expect a swing to be. Instead, they were somewhere with a dark blue carpet and white padded walls. It reminded Fred of a children’s ward in a hospital.

“Who is that?” Fred asked, pointing with his free hand.

The woman smiled sweetly and for a split second, Fred swore that he saw pink, feathery wings behind her back.

“Faith.”

The red-haired boy had spoken. The girl looked up from the book she had been reading and asked, “Yes?”

“Could you please get some biscuits for us?”

“I’m not your servant!” she groaned. But she got up anyway, walking outside the room.

The vision changed and Fred could now see the girl in a kitchen, grabbing a tin of shortbread. “I hope this makes them stop moaning.” She muttered to herself.

“Is that the girl I saw in the Tower of London?” Fred asked the woman.

She nodded slowly, still smiling pleasantly.

Then Faith stopped in her tracks. She dropped the tin, shortbread flying across the wooden floor. To Fred’s horror, she was looking directly at them.

“Can she see us?” he asked.

The woman nodded.

“Crap.”

 

Sam, Jodie and Freddi had found the farmer soon enough. Pretending to be passing through, he had cheerfully offered some biscuits and ale, although the children passed on the drink.

They soon learnt that it was Scotland. Galloway, to be exact. And the Viking longboat had not invaded, but was actually some Norsemen coming to trade.

“At least we’re not somewhere where people want to kill us,” Jodie murmured.

Sam kicked her under the table. “Don’t tempt fate.” He hissed, through gritted teeth.

 

Fred looked at the girl properly. She was a little younger than him, maybe ten years old. A voice inside his head said that she was ten years and three months. After hearing this, he looked towards the woman, who nodded.

_Can’t you speak?_ Fred wondered, before he faced Faith.

“I – Faith?”

“Yes?” she asked, voice quivering.

“You can see us?”

She nodded.

“I’m Fred,” he held his hand out, “I’m not sure if you’ve been to 1483 yet.”

She didn’t shake it.

He withdrew his hand and peered at her carefully. “I’ve seen you,” he gabbled, “several times. I – I’m not a Time Agent. But I’m from the Time Agency.”

Then everything disappeared.

“What gives?” he asked the woman, as he started struggling to get free once again.

Then the voice sounded inside his head again. This time she told him that her name was Isabel Wilson. Faith had not met him yet. But because of what they did here, she would know him when they next met, at the Tower of London.

“How old was she then?” Fred asked.

The voice told him that it was her twelfth birthday when she next saw him.

“But – what exactly are you?” Fred asked.

His mind wondered back to when Jodie had fallen from the cliff. She said that she was certain that Joanne – the ghost of Joanne, at least – had grabbed her and helped ease the fall.

Had something similar to this happened here?

Then the Book opened again.

 

“Fred, we’re just looking for the date,” Jodie explained, standing in what she had been told was the outhouse, although she thought that it was basically the edge of a cornfield, “Is something the matter?”

“Oh,” Fred looked about the box, “It’s – never mind.”

“It says here that the date’s October 6th AD 1009. What –“ Jodie looked closer at a photograph on the opposite page.

“Jodie?” Fred asked.

“It’s a memorial plaque,” Jodie murmured, “But it’s from the twentieth century.”

“What does the plaque say?”

Jodie read it aloud. “ _Isabel Wilson, 1941 – 1977. Love and faith transcend time and death._ ”

Fred felt a lump in his throat as everything washed over him.

“Fred?” Jodie seemed concerned.

“Oh. Nothing. Just get on with whatever we’re doing.”

 

Sam looked up at the two people sitting in the longboat. A young man and woman, both in Viking clothing. They looked perhaps about eighteen years old.

When Sam came up to ask what they were trading, simply because he wanted to see Vikings up front that wouldn’t attack him, the man whispered something to the woman and they both looked at Sam with distain.

This didn’t affect him. “Hello,” he held a hand up, “what are you trading? I just wanted to see –“

The man cautiously jumped over the edge of the longboat, landing inches from Sam. Before Sam knew it, the man had pulled a dagger from his belt and held it up. His other hand grabbed the front of Sam’s shirt, the tip of the dagger by his throat. “Tell me why you are here,” he snarled, glaring into Sam’s eyes, “before I give you a blood eagle.”

“Don’t!” the woman climbed out over the side. She frowned at the man, who was still gripping the collar of Sam’s shirt tightly. He didn’t look at her. She only looked annoyed.

Sam tried to pull the man’s hands away, but the Viking only snickered. “Do you think we should bury him with the hoard?” he chuckled.

Sam’s eyes grew wide. Luckily, the woman seemed to come to his rescue.

“You know the rules!” She pulled on his sleeve desperately. His eyes flicked over to her, before he groaned through clenched teeth, letting go of Sam.

Sam gabbled a quick thank you, before stepping backward and heading up the bank. He didn’t look back. When he finally did, hiding behind a large rock, he saw the two of them stand still for a moment, before they dozily looked about, walking up the steps cut into the cliff.

Sam didn’t need to be told twice. He fled back towards the cottage.

 

When the two Vikings passed the farm, Jodie and Freddi smiled at them.

“Do you still have any bread?” the man asked, “There is none left for our journey back.”

Jodie pointed towards the cottage. “Try the farmer.”

The woman thanked her, before she held the man’s hand. “Go ask, Magnus.” The man walked inside as the woman looked back at the two girls.

“Are you married?” Jodie asked her. The woman laughed.

“Oh, no. Not yet. But yes, Magnus and I are in love. I joined him on his voyage because we are thinking of settling somewhere here. Our parents said that we had been chosen by the gods to be together, as we were born on the same day in the light of the full moon.”

Freddi awed. “That’s just romantic!”

Jodie then asked a question that bothered her. “How old are you? You only look eighteen.”

The woman nodded. “That is true. We are young. But we are happy to be together.”

The man came out of the cottage, shouting, “Ingrid! The farmer has a problem. He says that we came last night!”

Ingrid frowned and briskly walked past the stone wall and the sheep. Jodie and Freddi followed, curious.

Inside the cottage, the farmer was ranting at Magnus.

“I saw you last night, you heathen!” he pointed a finger at him, scowling and snarling like a wolf, “You stole a disc brooch from my sister! You and your woman and that young monk Cuthbert! What he decided to do with Norseman thieves, I do not know.”

“Ingrid and I were asleep last night!” Magnus argued, his face nearly as red as his hair. “Go and ask the other traders. Asleep all night!”

“Why should I believe you Norsemen?” the farmer scowled. He grabbed Ingrid by her plait, causing her to let out a small scream. “I saw the both of you breaking in through the back door. Your husband smashed a plate above my wife’s head and Cuthbert tore her clothes off to steal them! She’s too upset to leave the house! You robbed eight other houses and Cuthbert stole a cross from the monastery. And what’s more, when I saw you in the moonlight outside, your eyes were bright green! Not blue!”

Before Jodie and Freddi could do anything, Sam had entered, asking what the commotion was. He didn’t get an answer, as the Book immediately hurtled them through time.

 

**1st August 2007  
Long Island**

Landing back in the tent, Jodie brushed the dirt off of her arms and murmured, “Well, that was one of the shortest trips we’ve ever had.” Then she saw Fred was now out of the Book, sitting back on his sleeping bag. “Oh, good, you’re out.” Then she asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing.” Fred answered.

“Fred, something’s wrong.” Sam tried to comfort him. “You saw something in the Book.”

“There was something about a plaque inside the Book,” Jodie pointed out, opening it, “But it’s gone.”

“Fred, you can tell us,” Sam placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, “What was it?”

“I – I just saw a weird woman who spoke telepathically to me.” Fred replied, not wishing to tell them about Faith.

“That’s all?” Freddi asked.

“Yeah. I’m not sure what she was doing. I guess – I guess her ghost appeared inside the Book. Like when you said Joanne saved you when you fell, Jodie.”

“It was her angel, actually,” Jodie blew hair from her face as she spoke, “But it does sound the same.”

“What would a strange woman want with you?” Freddi asked.

Fred shrugged.

“Oh well,” Freddi said, as Sam started typing the co-ordinates for 2107 in the Book, “We’d best get going.”

 

**2nd August 2007  
Brooklyn**

When Sam and Fred had returned the Book to Joe’s house, they found Uncle Joe in the living room, looking frantic.

“What’s up?” Fred asked him.

“Oh, I –“ Uncle Joe gabbled, “I need to see Joe. Right now.”

“All right,” Joe groaned as he came down the stairs, “I’m coming! Do we need the Book?”

“No, I have my pen,” Uncle Joe fumbled with it, “But I need to talk to you in private before we all go.”

“All of us?” Sam raised his eyebrow. “We just got back from camping.”

“I know, I know,” Uncle Joe interrupted, “but – just humour me boys, please.”

 

**2nd August 2107  
Brooklyn**

Jodie opened the Book, wondering about the thieves. As she did, her eyes widened as she read exactly what had happened.

“The record is,” she read, a chill going down her spine, “that ‘a Norseman and his wife and Cuthbert, a monk of eighteen years, took up arms and ravaged the village of Drummore of numerous objects of value.’ It says here that when the lawmen came to question them, the three of them suddenly became violent and stole a local fisherman’s boat. When they returned two days later, they stood on the beach, still and ignorant of anyone trying to talk to them, then suddenly became afraid again, saying they did not know what had happened. The three of them were hanged for theft.”

Then Freddi pointed at the next page. “Look! That’s where the goods went! Remember, we read about this in school?”

Jodie’s fingers trembled as she touched the page.

“The Galloway Hoard,” she read, “discovered 2014 on pastureland owned by the Church of Scotland. One of the most significant archaeological discoveries in Scottish history, the hoard contained more than a hundred gold and silver objects, including Anglo-Saxon brooches, a Christian silver cross, the largest Carolingian –“

“What?”

“It says down here that Carolingians were early medieval French nobles,” Jodie glanced at the appendix, then back to what she had been reading, “the largest Carolingian pot ever discovered, gold and crystal objects, an Irish silver brooch and even silk from Constantinople.”

“Why would anyone bury a bunch of things from all over in the ground in a field in Scotland?” Freddi asked.

“That’s the mystery, apparently,” Jodie shut the Book, “but I’d say that those three stole them.”

But neither of them could figure out for the life of them why.

 

**2nd August 2007  
Brooklyn**

It seemed that Uncle Joe was taking an annoyingly long time to speak to Joe in private.

Sam sat on the bed, Fred on the floor. Fred had picked up one of Joe’s graphic novels, since the last time he had tried to play basketball in Joe’s room they had ended up at the Alamo.

About a minute later, Sam held his hands over his stomach, squeezing his eyes shut and groaning softly. Fred was in the bathroom and couldn’t help him. Sam’s vision started to blur and he opened his mouth to scream, but it felt dry.

As he tried heaving his body up to stand, a bright green light appeared behind his eyes. When he saw what was happening inside, a chill ran through him as everything slotted into place.

When Fred came back, he saw Sam sitting cross-legged on the bed, his hands gripping his ankles.

“What are you doing, Sam?” Fred asked, playfully.

Sam did not answer.

Fred shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’d say that Joe’s about to go to the Time Agency about now, so we should get a move on.”

Sam stood up and rushed past Fred, standing right in front of him.

Fred tried to leave the room, but found Sam leaning on the doorframe at an angle, one hand above his head, gripping the top, the other on his hip. He was smiling rather unsettlingly, the corner of his mouth upturned.

“Sam?” Fred held out an uneasy hand in front of him, but his friend didn’t react.

“Take a seat.” It was more of a command than a suggestion. Fred felt his stomach churn since he knew that Sam would never normally command anything. Sam couldn’t even ask the lunchlady for dessert.

“Sam, let me out.” Fred tried to grip his friend’s limp arms to push him out of the way, but Sam immediately grabbed Fred’s shoulders.

“I said _take - a - seat_!” Sam bellowed, pushing Fred away with brute force onto the bed.

As Sam walked into the room, taking his time, the door shut behind him and the window seemed to slam shut and lock itself. Fred looked back at Sam, confused and rather frightened.

“What –“ Fred tried to ask, but Sam simply sat down beside him on the bed, still smirking nastily. Fred shuffled back on the now tangled duvet, as Sam only leaned forward, pressing his hands into the mattress.

“You see, Fred, this is the problem,” Sam’s voice had changed to a deeper, unsettling tone, completely unlike how it was normally, “you’re the dumb muscle. If the situation was reversed, Sam would have spotted this ages ago. And _Joe_ ,” Sam spat, “wouldn’t know something was wrong even if it slapped him in the face. He must take after brother dear.”

A chill ran down Fred’s spine as the pieces of the puzzle began to join together. He shrank back on the bed in fear.

“Mad Jack?”

“Bingo.”

Sam’s pupils flickered green for a second. Pressing down onto the bed with Sam’s left hand, he raised Sam’s right and snapped the fingers. The cupboard doors swung open wildly.

“How did you – Why –“ Fred began to stammer, but Mad Jack pushed the boy onto his stomach, holding his arms in a full Nelson.

“It’s amazing what six months of meditation with a waterfall can do, Fred.” Mad Jack calmly spoke as if he were ordering something to eat. “Six months under the pool filtration and my soul can fly anywhere in time. Only places that I have been, of course. Since I have been to Joe’s house already, I just had to wait.

“Unfortunately,” he sneered, “Hedgewing’s power over my nephew means that I cannot take his body. I just had to take the next person who came into his room. Ugh! This body is useless. He’s too floppy and his head’s filled with bizarre and useless bits of trivia.”

“It’s not so useless if it saves us on a weekly basis.” Fred grunted, his head half-wedged into the mattress.

Mad Jack yanked Fred up and started pushing him toward the cupboard. Fred dug his heels in, but it was simply amazing how strong Sam’s body was. Or had Mad Jack’s strength been transferred with his soul?

“Don’t you dare hurt Joe!” Fred snapped, as Mad Jack pushed him inside the cupboard. Mad Jack then turned Fred around so that he was facing him.

Mad Jack pressed Sam’s hands either side of Fred’s body and raised an eyebrow.

“Fred, I think you know by now that I will not hesitate to hurt my relatives. Now, if you be a good boy and stay in this closet, I won’t hurt you.”

Then he started to snigger. If Mad Jack being in control of Sam’s body wasn’t uncomfortable enough, Fred thought, his laugh was different from his as well. It suddenly made everything a lot creepier. Although Fred was actually amazed that it could become creepier.

“You know, Fred, I’ve seen you around, when I was flying through time. When you were in Florence, you thought Sam was asleep. Well, I heard everything you told him.” The corner of Sam’s lips turned upwards for a split second, as Mad Jack reminisced hearing this juicy titbit.

“Sam, you have to fight this.” Fred muttered to himself.

Mad Jack turned Sam’s head to the left slightly. “Oh, Sam’s not awake right now. I can catch glimpses of his thoughts, every now and then. In his dream, he could hear you talking. And the funny thing was, he actually felt the same.”

Fred had no clue if Mad Jack was playing a cruel trick on him. If he tried looking into his eyes for any sign of lying, he would see his friend looking back.

“That was a private moment.” He hissed through gritted teeth. “You – you were at the fireplace. How dare you take him over!” Fred’s mind whirled as he recalled the incident in da Vinci’s dining room, how calm and eerie ‘Sam’ had been. Since Sam had first gone to bed in Italy, it had been Mad Jack in control.

Mad Jack shrugged. “To-may-to, to-ma-to. Now, I just need to make sure you won’t cause any trouble while I get the Book.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to have a lot of fun writing stories involving possession. First _The Magic School Bus_ , now this.
> 
> While this is the end of the story, I am planning a sequel to finish the series. I am not sure as of now what it will contain, but I do need a break from writing for a while, as I have put a lot of effort into this.

Joe went with his uncle immediately to the Time Agency.

“What about the others?” Joe asked as they landed inside the gym, or rather, the room that was the gym, living room and parlour, depending on what it was being used for.

Uncle Joe made his way towards the door without looking back.

“Uncle Joe!” Joe asked again, this time more annoyed, “Why did you leave them?”

“I – I had to. I had to do this quickly. I wasn’t thinking when I arrived at your house, Joe,” Uncle Joe opened the door and ran out, as Joe placed the Book on the couch next to him and followed, “I don’t want to have to leave them alone…when we go back, we’ll collect Anna and the boys. Bring them here.”

By now Uncle Joe was rushing down the stone steps two at a time, entering the dungeon area. Then he stopped outside his crazy brother’s cell. Opening the slot, he peered through.

Joe had to jump up to try and look as well, but Uncle Joe took his pen out from his pocket and used it to levitate Joe up a few feet. Joe mumbled thanks as he looked inside and saw Mad Jack’s body sitting completely still, cross-legged.

“He’s still there. I don’t know what you’re paranoid about.” Joe turned towards Uncle Joe.

“Can’t you see anything different?” Uncle Joe asked bluntly.

Joe slowly looked back inside the cell. He wasn’t sure if it was because the lighting was rather dull, but Mad Jack seemed paler and colourless, if that was possible on a person.

“It’s as I thought,” Uncle Joe mumbled, “But we have to bring everyone else here. Just so that I can see if my theory is correct.”

“What theory?” Joe demanded.

“Not until everyone is here. I know it’s frustrating, Joe, but if I turn out to be wrong then I will have made a fool of myself. I cannot be too careful.”

After shoving Fred inside the cupboard and placing a chair in front, Mad Jack was now standing outside Anna’s room. She was playing with her stuffed toys. How childish, he thought, considering that she’s probably nine now.

Then another thought appeared inside his head. She looked like her mother did at that age.

He pushed this from his mind as he entered. Anna looked up. “Oh, hi Sam,” she placed her toys down, “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Yes.” Mad Jack tried to sound like Sam. After six months of slow possession, he had managed to be reasonably successful.

Of course, it so happened that Sam was sometimes alone when he was possessed. The first time had been in a bathroom. Mad Jack had tested it out by snapping a toothbrush in two.

Another few times, it had been just Sam and his mother. Once it had been just before Sam was to go to bed and Mad Jack had tried to pretend that Sam wasn’t feeling well to try and explain why his voice sounded different.

When he had been around the boys, it had been awkward. True, it had been a little exciting to be back in a school environment, inside a body that was the right age to do so without arousing suspicion. But he had had to sneak out of the classroom or gym or playground to go and steal from the science laboratory, which put a damper on the experience.

The problem had been trying to control the body properly. The first sign of losing control was a bloodshot eye, followed by slurred speech. When he had been concocting the potions, he had lost control and had to shock himself into concentration.

Luckily Jodie hadn’t seen that. But the teacher had and he had been forced to go to the nurse’s office. Mad Jack didn’t want to have to kill the teacher, he truly didn’t. But he had lunged at her and strangled her inside the storage closet, stuffing her body under the cot. That time he had been sure he was gaining the upper hand, since he doubted Sam’s body was strong enough to strangle someone.

Mad Jack tried to smile when Anna turned to face him, but he couldn’t do one convincingly. Instead, he told Anna, “You need to wait down in the living room. Uncle Joe’s just about to take us to the Time Agency.”

Anna didn’t need telling twice. She ran out of the room and headed down the stairs.

Mad Jack smiled to himself. That had the pipsqueak sorted. Now for the potions.

As he made his way to the bathroom to retrieve them, he suddenly realised that this would be harder than he had originally thought. He had Joe and Anna to fool, not to mention that brother dear may have caught onto his plans.

He needed help.

When Uncle Joe arrived back at the house, he called out for the others. “Fred? Anna?” Then his voice faltered. “Sam?”

Anna came down the stairs. “Hi, Uncle Joe,” she hugged him tightly, “The boys are just coming.”

“Good, good,” Uncle Joe mused, stroking his chin as he thought, “Listen, Anna, I need to take you back now. Stay inside the gym and don’t move, no matter what I say.”

“Why?” Anna managed to ask, before Uncle Joe took his pen from his pocket and the time mist emerged.

“Just trust me, please.”

Mad Jack looked over at Fred and leant back against the wall in Joe’s bedroom.

Fred, who was currently tied to a chair and glaring daggers at him, hadn’t said a word since he had been dragged out of the cupboard, even before Mad Jack had gagged him with Anna’s scarf. All Fred did was twist his wrists from left to right as he tried getting his hands free.

“That won’t work,” Mad Jack scoffed, “All you’ll do is just injure yourself. Just lie back and relax. You’re not going anywhere, kid.”

Mad Jack sat down on the floor and examined the bottles he had taken from the bathroom, where they had been hidden inside the toilet basin since brewing them at the boys’ school. It was amazing that they hadn’t leaked.

One of the bottles held chloroform. This was just in case something went wrong.

Another one held a potion; the freezing spell in potion form, to be exact. Mad Jack had created this one years ago, back when he was living in his lair in Scotland. Transferring the freezing spell into potion form, he had tested it on some unfortunate rats, before knocking out an entire local village and stealing valuables.

The third contained another potion. This one had been a particularly difficult one to concoct. As well as the very rare ingredients he had been forced to steal from stockrooms both at the Time Agency and places the boys went to on their travels, he had had to take some of Joe’s hair. That was what he had been doing on the night of the slumber party.

Then Mad Jack had had to take some from his brother, before binding everything with his own blood. That had been stored beneath a group of fallen branches by the pool, taken to Brooklyn when Mad Jack took over Sam’s body.

It was brilliant, in every way.

This particular potion would be used as a last resort, just in case his irritating relatives had any tricks up their sleeves. But his favourite was the freezing spell, no doubt about that. The chloroform was all well and good, but with a freezing spell in liquid form there was a slightly smaller risk of accidental vomiting.

“Do you know what this is, Fred?” Mad Jack sniggered, holding up his freezing potion. He shook it in Sam’s hands. “It can paralyze part of your body. Now, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. If you agree to help me, to play along with me, I won’t inject you with this. Let me just show you how bad it is.”

Mad Jack dipped Kristopher’s letter-opener, stolen from his video-cassette-filled bedroom, into the light blue liquid and then placed the bottle back down on the floor. Fred’s eyes widened. As Mad Jack held Sam’s thin hand around Fred’s wrist, he prodded the index finger ever so softly. Fred winced, his fingers flapping about as the pain shot through him. Biting into the gag, he tried again to get himself free.

“It can be rather painful,” Mad Jack wiped the end of the letter-opener on a towel hanging off the bed, “I hope that I can rely on you. It’s difficult to find anybody who wishes to follow me. If you give any kind of signal to anyone that I’m not the bookworm, I’ll inject you so hard in your thighbone that Freddi will vanish. Understand?”

Fred’s index finger wouldn’t move. It simply lay limp as the rest of his hand dug into the wood.

“Do you understand?” Mad Jack snapped, using Sam’s own index finger to lift Fred’s chin up.

He let go of him and Fred nodded quickly.

“Good.” Mad Jack murmured as he went behind the chair to untie Fred.

As soon as Fred could stand up again, he asked, “How long does the freezing work?”

Mad Jack simply opened the door. Without looking back, he answered, “About twelve hours if I give a tiny prick. For the whole body? Maybe four, five days if it’s as small an amount as that. But if I literally stab you? Assuming it wasn’t in a life-threatening place, you might never move that part again. See what I mean about helping me get to Joe?”

As Mad Jack started to leave the room, he noticed Fred standing completely still, looking down miserably at the floor.

Groaning loudly, Mad Jack turned around and grabbed at Fred’s wrist. “What?” he demanded the boy.

Fred’s eyes looked up, frowning.

“Let Sam go,” he told him, “Take me if you have to. After all, you’ve impersonated Joe and possessed Sam. When’s it my turn?”

Mad Jack smirked. “I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that. When we go downstairs, I need to get some items from my dungeon. And I know what you’re thinking –“ he pointed a finger at Fred, eyes narrowing, “You can’t threaten me by hurting my body.”

He gave a low, cold chuckle. “You really want to risk that?” Mad Jack rested Sam’s hand on the wall, still gripping Fred. “If you destroy my body, my soul will be severed, true. But I’ll remain trapped in here.”

“For how long?” Fred dared ask.

“Until Sam bites the dust as well. He’ll be in control, most of the time. But would you really want to ruin his life, just to stop me? And,” he chortled, “how will you know when it’s Sam or if it’s me?”

Fred weighed out the pros and cons inside his mind. No, he told himself, there were only downsides to this.

Mad Jack smirked. “Just what I thought.”

Two minutes later, Uncle Joe saw the two small bodies descend the stairs. Fred looked terrified, crossing his arms and gripping his upper arms. Sam had changed out of his usual red buttoned-up shirt and had on a long, sleeveless purple jacket. He held the handrail firmly and seemed to enjoy running his nails along the painted wood and making marks.

“Right…boys…we’re going to the Time Agency.” Uncle Joe managed to say before the time mist swirled around.

When they arrived by the outdoor pool, Joe was sitting at the edge, wading his ankles inside the freezing cold water. “Hi!” he waved at Fred and Sam. But they didn’t wave back.

Joe got out of the pool and walked over, confused. The three boys sat down on the stone floor beside the water and watched Uncle Joe as he began talking heavily about what had happened since Mad Jack had been arrested. Joe wasn’t entirely sure why.

But Joe was certain of one thing. He didn’t know what it was about his friends that made them seem different.

Every time he opened his mouth and asked a question, Fred would look over at Sam before answering. It was almost as if he was afraid of Sam. Which was ridiculous, as Sam wouldn’t hurt a fly. Unless it was flying in front of him, that is.

Fred rubbed his bare arms and looked about him carefully, his eyes constantly darting back to Sam. Fred had barely said a word since Joe had seen them arrive.

But Sam was another story. When he had laughed, at what he had told Joe was a private joke, it was a very different laugh indeed. It was a cold, hollow laugh. Sam didn’t lean back against chairs in the same way, either. He often sat up straight and listening, not slouch down and grumble under his breath.

Come to think of it, Joe had seen that slouch before. But he couldn’t figure out where.

Uncle Joe got up and started walking inside the nearby tree, which also happened to be one of the entrances to the Time Agents’ bedrooms.

Joe looked over at his friends, who were now standing about six feet away from him. Sam held something under his jacket and whenever Fred started to turn his back or walk away, Sam would cough loudly and grip whatever it was in his hand. Fred would stop whatever he was doing and look in another direction. Joe was about to ask Fred what was going on, but when he stood up to go over, Fred only turned around and looked away, ignoring Joe when he tried to ask.

After an uncomfortable five minutes (although it seemed much longer), Uncle Joe came out of the tree.

“Now then!” he clapped his hands together, “Joe, I need to speak to you urgently.”

“If it is urgent,” Sam stood up, “surely we should all come?”

“Err, no,” Uncle Joe seemed skittish, “just Joe…Sam.”

Uncle Joe seemed to be a tiny bit afraid of Sam, just as Fred was. Joe wondered exactly what was going on. Why was everyone suddenly scared of his wimp of a friend?

Joe followed his uncle inside the tree. But instead of entering the bedrooms, as this entrance would have done, Uncle Joe held Joe’s arm and pointed out through the one-way window.

Sam eyed the window horribly, frowning and lightly tapping the edge of his nose.

Uncle Joe hissed under his breath. “I knew it!”

“Knew what?” Joe asked, nervous but also demanding, “What’s wrong with Sam?”

“Joe, we should have done something about it earlier. I haven’t seen it in years so I didn’t realise the symptoms. I thought he had linked to others’ subconscious, as he had done with Thomas Edison. I never would have thought that he would…”

He looked seriously at his nephew and spoke slowly and clearly.

“That is not Sam out there. Actually that’s not quite true, but there are two souls there. One is Sam’s. The other is Mad Jack’s.”

Joe looked back at the boy with scruffy black hair. The boy whose eyes seemed to stare directly through Joe. Those eyes, with their green, glowing pinpricks. That smile, that wicked smile which looked unnatural on his friend.

Joe kicked himself for not recognizing this immediately.

“How do you know?” he whispered, although he didn’t know why he was whispering.

“Because Sam’s never been through this way, correct?” Joe nodded. “But he’s looking at the exact spot where the one-way window is. There’s nothing out there to suggest a window.”

Joe was about to say that that was a rather odd deduction, but then he saw ‘Sam’ raise a finger to his lips, smirking.

“Is Sam all right?” Joe’s voice came out in a strangled gasp.

Uncle Joe nodded. “It will. Time possession is a very difficult spell. It’s black magic and I would have expected my brother to try something, but I know it can be reversed. If Mad Jack’s body is not damaged, his soul will need to return to recharge.”

“And Sam?”

“He’ll be fine, Joe,” Uncle Joe partially lied, “We just need to get him away from Fred. Get him somewhere he won’t cause any damage.”

Outside, Mad Jack slowly reached his hand forward and grabbed Fred just below the elbow. “I think he’s working it out.” He seemed so calm about the situation. Fred dreaded what this madman was actually thinking.

“Then let me go!” Fred grunted, trying to pull away.

“Not yet,” Mad Jack chuckled, placing the three vials from the jacket onto a stone bench, “If they go now, send me back to my body, I won’t co-operate. You want to know, don’t you? About her?”

Fred stood still, not even bothering to try and struggle about more. “Her?” he asked, wondering what Mad Jack was talking about, wondering if he meant Faith.

“The girl you have a crush on. Well, when you’re not hiding your feelings towards Sam, at any rate,” Mad Jack sniggered again, “That pretty girl, Faith Wilson.”

Fred had so many questions that he had no idea which one to ask first. After a short pause, he eventually went with, “Her surname’s Wilson?”

Mad Jack nodded. “Oh, what we’ve seen in Joe’s future. My brother and I. Faith’s past is a very odd one, Fred. Let me give you some foresight.

“From what I know about Faith, she spent her first ten years training with her brothers; Gary August and Joshua White. Don’t ask why they have different surnames; it’s not important right now. Her father, her caretaker, is an ex-agent of ours. Agent Andrew.

“Now, Andrew left here a long time ago. I never met him. He absconded in 1976, 1977. He wanted to know the mysteries of history. That’s why he joined the Time Agency. But Andrew was ruthless. He wanted to know all secrets. He is the sort of man I admire and that’s saying something.

“Anyway, Andrew simply left one day. The other agents thought he’d been killed in another time. Until brother dear spotted him out in the Himalayas. Remember, this agency leads out to somewhere on Everest? Well, it was while I had run away, but before I murdered Hedgewing. ’81, I think. I don’t know what happened, but the adult Time Agents started to attack. Andrew had seen them and conjured up spells to transport his lair away to another spot. Bermuda Triangle, the Outback, somewhere out by Japan; I don’t know. One of the Vile Vortices. Ask Sam. When I let him go, anyway…

“From what brother dear found out later from the crystal ball, three children had been seen with Andrew. Faith and her brothers, Fred. If you want to be picky, their birthday is sometime in late September or early October 1977. They were born outside of time, which is why their hair is really long and they need to file down their nails every day. Why, you might ask? Because Andrew wanted accomplices, Fred.

“His…particular way of time travel, to be unnoticed by the Time Agency, would have to involve being born outside of time. Andrew wants to know all the secrets of human history. The lost texts, lost knowledge. He wants to keep everything to himself. Everyone at the Time Agency is too mad to realise the full potential of exploring time.”

Then he stopped talking. Fred waited for a moment. But Mad Jack didn’t say any more.

“What else is there?” Fred stammered.

“Not until you help me get the Book.” Mad Jack placed one of Sam’s hands on his hip, cockily.

Fred started to struggle again, but before either of them could do anything else, the door in the tree opened and Uncle Joe ran out, lunging towards Mad Jack.

Mad Jack stepped out of the way, letting go of Fred. He ran onto the bridge over the pool, before sitting astride the white stone edge.

“Brother dear…” he mocked, before hanging upside down over the side, smirking. Joe and Fred stared at him in horror, wondering how aware Sam was of all of this.

“You let the boy go,” Uncle Joe ordered, but still remained oddly calm, “Let me speak to you.”

“Inside my dungeon?” Mad Jack crossed Sam’s arms. “Hardly. I have an advantage here. None of you would dare touch me while I am in young Sam’s body.”

Fred gabbled quickly to Joe, “I – I’m sorry, Joe. He – threatened me, threatened Freddi.”

“It’s okay.” Joe told him, eyes still on Mad Jack.

“I think I’ll take the Book,” Mad Jack sneered at his brother, pulling the letter-opener out of Sam’s pocket, “You remember how I always won archery? Well, I’ve been practising over the last thirty years and even in this stick-thin boy, I think I can hit you from here. It wouldn’t be the first life I made these hands snuff out.”

Joe and Fred remembered Mrs Tanner and went pale.

If Uncle Joe couldn’t think his older brother could get any crazier, the proof was right in front of him.

Joe broke the silence by yelling, “You can have the Book! Just let Sam go!”

Mad Jack turned to face him. “Wise choice.”

He lifted Sam’s legs from the bridge and somersaulted into the pool. Joe dived in after him, shortly followed by Fred.

However, Fred swam off in another direction. Going underneath the bridge, he held his breath as he made his way around the corner. Coming up for air, he told himself to try and calm down and focus. He hoped this would work.

Fred had only seen this once before, when Samantha was trying to contact Joe when Mad Jack had kidnapped him. But he couldn’t think of any other options. He had to get help.

“John,” he whispered under his breath, “Peter, Jacquetta, Elizabeth, Richard, Lena, Josefine.” He felt a warm glow spread through his body and he could see the green of the time mist as he tried concentrating on seeing Jodie in front of him.

Then he could see out through Jodie’s copy of the Book. And what he saw chilled him to the bone.

Samantha and Freddi had gone round to Jodie’s to borrow a video box set when they had seen her sitting on her bed, shrieking that her legs had vanished into thin air.

“I just found myself like this,” she explained when the girls had finally managed to calm her down, “I tried calling Dad, but…he didn’t answer. I went into his room and he was asleep, but his lower half had gone, too! I tried calling the boys with the Book, but all I heard was…”

Jodie had placed her head in her hands.

“Heard what?” Samantha wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer.

Jodie gave a sob and looked up. “I heard Mad Jack laughing.”

At that moment, the Book had opened and Fred called out.

“Jodie? Are you there?”

“Fred!” Samantha had grabbed the Book, “Jodie’s vanishing. Is Joe all right?”

Fred quickly filled them in on what had happened. When he mentioned Mad Jack’s soul possessing Sam’s body, Samantha had scowled horribly and she gripped the edges of the Book a bit too fiercely. But Fred told them, “Get here as soon as you can. Use the pocket watch; I don’t want to risk the Book.”

The girls shut the Book and Fred slowly released the energy, waking up in the pool.

He heard a loud clanging sound from behind him and looked around to see Joe trying to hold onto the Book while Mad Jack pulled at it. Joe had his arm wrapped around it, while Mad Jack was trying to poke it with the knife, failing and letting it drop onto the stone floor below.

While Mad Jack pulled himself upright again, Joe took the chance and ran inside with the Book.

The first place he found was the cupboard just outside the indoor pool. Joe held the Book close, the only sound his own, terrified breathing.

Then he heard loud tapping outside.

“Joe?” Mad Jack called out, playfully, “Come out, dear nephew.”

Joe heard the sound of Mad Jack clacking Sam’s fingernails against the stone wall. It was bad enough that his crazy uncle was planning on possibly killing him, but Joe never would have guessed that Mad Jack would use Sam’s body.

He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on trying to speak to Hedgewing.

 _Please,_ he begged.

Then Hedgewing seemed to appear in Joe’s mind’s eye. Still and solemn, the prior Warp Wizard didn’t open his mouth. He only nodded, without asking anything.

Joe didn’t quite understand, which prompted Hedgewing to smile. Two can play at that game… Joe seemed to hear inside his head.

“Are you sure?” Joe whispered. Hedgewing only nodded again in response.

Joe sighed. “Okay. If it means that everyone will be safe.”

When Mad Jack saw his nephew step out of the storeroom, he held Sam’s hands in front, ready to grab him. But then he saw the whites of Joe’s eyes glowing a vivid green.

“Hedgewing?” he rose Sam’s eyebrow in annoyance. Then he stood up properly and sighed.

Hedgewing eyed Mad Jack closely. “ _We need to talk._ ”

Mad Jack and Hedgewing were sat at opposite ends of the gym mat, cross-legged.

Their eyes glowed green, although Hedgewing’s encompassed the whole eye, not just the whites. They were both staring at each other, wondering who should make the next move. From ten feet away, Anna stood nervously, gripping the Book to her chest. Uncle Joe stood by the door, holding his pen in his hand, in case anyone made a foolish move.

They had been surprised when Joe came out with glowing green eyes. Anna had been scared, asking, “Joe, what’s wrong?” But Uncle Joe had taken her aside as the two men in boys’ bodies had sat down to talk.

Anna had looked back at her brother, even though she knew that last time they had told her that he was okay. It just unsettled her to see Joe’s eyes glowing green like that. Or to see her crazed uncle possessing Sam.

Mad Jack went first. “What I want to understand, Hedgewing,” he pointed, “is why the Book was given to me in the first place if you knew I was going to go mad?”

“ _Simple,_ ” Hedgewing responded, “ _I don’t question time. I have had many meditations as the Warp Wizard and have seen many unusual things. Just as all the Warp Wizards before me. I shared in their visions, too. Just as Joe will do if he asks to see them._ ”

“And that’s another thing,” Mad Jack barked, narrowing Sam’s eyes, “why was my nephew chosen? My cuckoo-for-Coco-Puffs brother, possibly. You lot are as mad as hatters. But why a kid? Why was he selected at such a young age to be Warp Wizard?”

Hedgewing did not react. Mad Jack carried on, using just as many exaggerated hand gestures as Sam would. Maybe it was because he was currently inhabiting Sam’s body.

“Eleven? He became Warp Wizard at eleven? I was ready to kill him anyway if things got that bad –“

“ _Were you really that lonely, Jack?_ ” Hedgewing’s voice now became curious. “ _Your spite and jealously made you run away. Was that also why you were desperate to kidnap young Samantha? Face it, Jack. You are still the eleven-year-old boy I sent away._ ”

“I am not!” Mad Jack slammed Sam’s fists into the mat, furiously.

“ _Ah, Jack, still solving your problems with violence. Even if you became the Ruler of Time, you would feel empty. You chose to leave your brother, you sister, your mother. You never even went to your mother’s funeral. I can’t even begin to fathom how hard it must have been for a young boy to live on his own._ ”

“Shut up! Shut up!” Mad Jack had placed Sam’s hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.

“This is the weirdest thing I have ever seen.” Anna shook her head slowly in disbelief.

The girls landed beside the pool. Since Jodie probably wouldn’t be able to travel, Samantha and Freddi had come.

Fred climbed out of the pool and then started running towards the indoor pool. “I saw them go in this way,” he gabbled.

“Hey, Fred?” Samantha called after him, “What’s the plan?”

“I have no idea!” Fred shouted, still running.

The girls looked at each other before they headed after him.

When Fred arrived at the pool, he stopped and peered around. The place was empty. Fred started to worry, but then he saw Daisy sweeping with a broom. Even though there wasn’t anything to sweep up.

“Daisy!” he called after her, “Have you seen Joe or his uncle anywhere?”

Daisy looked up as the girls came in after him. “They’re in the living room at the moment. I’m not sure why, though.”

“Where’s that?” Freddi asked her.

Daisy pointed towards the dark blue glass door. “Beside the potions room and above the dungeon.”

It took a bit of time for the three of them to navigate the insides of the Time Agency. The hallways resembled something that MC Esther would make if he was drunk. The walls would turn into floors halfway through, some steps were sideways on the walls themselves and all of the doors were unlocked. To make matters crazier, some steps were made of stone and others made of ice.

Fred thought he preferred spending seven hours inside a freezing pool.

When they reached the gym, Freddi having lost a shoe and Samantha’s pigtails coming loose from getting caught on candleholders, the door was wide open and they glanced inside.

As the three of them hid behind a large dragon statue, Fred looked around the side at the scene unfolding in front of him.

“And that’s another thing…” Mad Jack prattled on, “Why are you all calm about all of the crazy things you do? I’ve wanted to ask this question since I was sixteen; what are you lot smoking to come up with them? Climbing ropes in the living room, I might understand. But human Jenga is as irritating as it is nonsensical. It’s a waste of magic and at no point does camouflage involve making yourself as stiff as a board.”

Uncle Joe and Anna exchanged looks. Mad Jack had been going on for the better part of twenty minutes. They wondered whether it was because he was shrieking out thirty years of pent-up rage, or if possessing Sam on-and-off for six months meant that some of Sam’s personality had seeped in. Uncle Joe thought that the answer was probably a little bit of both.

“And why is the head cook somebody who would poison everybody?” Mad Jack asked. “I had so many ham-and-vinegar rolls that even if I smell vinegar I feel sick. When I first ate Vicky’s food, I honestly thought that she must be blind. I – do you know how hard it can be to provide for yourself, hmm? When you’re eleven years old and living out of a trailer by a historic site in the middle of Mexico? I had to eat rats! And even that was better than her food!

“I’ve had to eat MREs for thirty years. I probably have more in my lair in Scotland than most paranoid Americans in the Cold War. And the bedside manner here is a joke. ‘Manner’ is far from it. I hated being woken up in the morning with a cold shower. And your talks, my word! No-one wants to hear about how you obtained your Swiss clocks, Hedgewing. You were the most boring man I’d ever met and you’re supposed to be a wise magician. Everyone was horrified when I murdered you, but what actually surprised me is no-one had done it already! It’s – no wonder that so many agents chose to live out centuries or millennia in empires. It’s better than all this!”

He had stopped shouting for a moment, placed Sam’s right hand on the bridge of his nose and groaned loudly.

Hedgewing raised an eyebrow. “ _Well, Jack, if you have stopped whining, perhaps we can talk about the Book._ ”

“It’s supposed to be mine!” Mad Jack looked up, Sam’s wild hair flying around as he leaned forward, snarling.

“ _You need to think of others besides yourself,_ ” Hedgewing spoke calmly and clearly, “ _If you did, maybe you would have had a nicer life. The Book is not yours to control. No-one should control the Book. The Book controls the owner. It always has, ever since it was uncovered by the Vedas. You need to work with its power, not against it. Your brother has, Joe does and one day, Jodie will. And after Jodie, and after her children, it will return to the Time Agency and never be opened again until the end of time._ ”

It was strange for Anna to hear such powerful words come out of Joe’s mouth, even if he wasn’t speaking them. She looked over towards Uncle Joe, her hands getting sweaty where she held the Book.

As Mad Jack then started barking about how the Time Agency couldn’t even look after a potted plant, let alone two children, Anna carefully made her way across the room, not once taking her eyes off of her crazy uncle inside Sam’s body.

When she stood beside Uncle Joe, she passed the Book over to him.

Mad Jack groaned again, Sam’s eyes looking up towards the stained glass ceiling. “Okay, just…just give us a minute.”

He needed to think of what to do next. And when he would re-enter his own body – or, considering the way things were going, would be forced back – his security would be tightened. He might never even see the dim light of what passed for day in here again.

Time to pick the boy’s brain.

Mad Jack closed Sam’s eyes as he concentrated. In his envisioned version of Joe’s room, he saw Sam standing there like a lemon.

“What would you suggest?” he snorted.

Sam scowled, crossing his arms and looking down. “You can’t hurt me when you’re here. I’m not going to help you.”

“Sam, I don’t think you can see the full potential here,” Mad Jack argued, “If I don’t win, then I will never leave your body. I’ll do my best to stay in here, even if it means killing my own physical form. If I do win, I promise to leave everybody alone. I won’t even go after Samantha, that’s how serious you know I am.”

Mad Jack wanted to say that Sam’s mother was much better-looking anyway, especially since Vanessa’s outer appearance reminded him of the shaved bears in Victorian sideshows and he was afraid that Samantha might end up looking like that, but he kept his mouth shut.

Sam felt like an unwilling prisoner being led to a gallows. Which he was, all things considered.

“What are your strategies?” the boy meekly asked, “I could point out problems.”

Mad Jack smiled. “ _I knew you’d eventually come to see my way._ ”

Freddi was crouching down behind her great-grandfather. “What are we going to do now?” she hissed.

“Don’t worry. I can fix it.” Fred stammered, not looking away.

Samantha groaned. “You said that! And nothing’s happened!”

As Uncle Joe started to leave the room with Anna, he passed the statue. Looking down at the three of them, he didn’t question anything. Instead he beckoned towards the door and walked out.

When they were outside, Uncle Joe pulled the Book out from under his shirt. “What were you going to do?” he asked them.

“Fred’s thinking on it.” Samantha folded her arms crossly and frowned at him.

“Please,” Freddi begged Uncle Joe, “Jodie’s disappearing. We’ve got to do something.”

“If you say going in the pool like Daisy did last time, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.” Fred pointed out.

“I don’t think my brother has a plan either,” Uncle Joe replied, “He’s just been too keen on possessing Sam.”

“Could you not say that word?” Samantha shuddered. “That’s my great-grandfather you’re referring to. And if Mad Jack is stuck in his body forever, I think I’m going to reconsider my family tree.”

“He isn’t, trust me,” Uncle Joe reassured her, “He might be a bit snappy and tired when we get him out, but he can be released. He has to be, since Mad Jack needs to go back inside his body to recharge.”

“So we just need to tire him out?” Fred asked, “Fine with me, but if Sam starts rotating his head 360 degrees and vomiting pea soup, I’m out of here.”

Mad Jack looked sideways at Hedgewing in Joe’s body.

If it was possible, he could simply snuff out Joe’s life now. Not only would it give him the satisfaction of killing Hedgewing twice, but he would finally have vengeance.

But the problem was that he was now getting weak. He hadn’t stayed in Sam’s body this long before and he’d spent a good chunk of it moaning. He’d need to return to his own body soon. If he tried to hurt Joe in any way, there was the possibility that Sam would regain control.

 _Sam, you better help me,_ he groaned.

 _Try to agree,_ he heard Sam telling him, _Just please let me go when you get the Book._

 _I did promise you,_ Mad Jack laughed inwardly.

“Fine, Hedgewing,” he held a palm out, “I’m ready to hear a deal.”

Hedgewing placed Joe’s hands together and stretched them out, palms facing upwards. A small green orb appeared from them and he started chanting.

Mad Jack recoiled, realising what the deceased Warp Wizard was doing. He was going to trap him in a circle that would drain the power of any potions or weapons he had.

Quick as a flash, Mad Jack stood up and leapt at Hedgewing, grabbing him by Joe’s throat.

Even though he wasn’t in control, Joe could feel Sam’s hands close around his windpipe. Hedgewing then for some reason let him regain control and left his body, leaving Joe at Mad Jack’s mercy. The grip was as tight as a vice and Joe saw himself looking into Sam’s face as he started to lose strength.

Sam tried to take control, shouting loudly and trying to pull Mad Jack off, but it was fruitless. Then both Mad Jack and Sam felt a horrible pain as Joe kicked out at somewhere important.

Joe scrambled out from under his friend’s body and out of the door, screaming for Uncle Joe. There was no-one in the hallway. But Joe knew he had to think fast.

Get Mad Jack out in the open. Find Daisy or Fred or someone.

_Anyone._

Working his way to where he thought the outdoor pool would be, he heard Samantha whispering. Stopping in his tracks, he saw Samantha looking out from behind a corner. “This way!” she hissed.

Joe didn’t need to be told twice.

Following Samantha to the bedroom hallway, he watched as she went up to the tree entrance.

Joe started to climb when he heard a voice behind him.

“I’m coming to get you!”

Samantha held her arm out and helped Joe up before she raced out of the tree. Standing by the willows, she looked back as Joe finally made his way partially up the bank. Mad Jack followed, glaring furiously at his nephew.

“It seems that I’ll have to use this now,” he pulled out a vial with red liquid sloshing inside.

“What’s that?” Joe quivered, not sure if he wanted to know.

“Blood control, nephew,” Mad Jack answered, “One drop on you – or brother dear – and I’ll be able to control your movements. I can make you kill each other!”

“But Hedgewing’s linked to me,” Joe argued, “He wouldn’t let you.”

“Perhaps,” Mad Jack shrugged Sam’s shoulders, “but even he wouldn’t be able to successfully fight back both me and my brother.”

Joe stepped back a little as Mad Jack dipped the letter-opener in the red liquid and held it high, ready to attack.

“NOW!” Samantha screamed.

Joe and Mad Jack stopped in their tracks as two rubber balls rolled out from the bushes on either side of them. They then seeped out smoke as Joe wisely moved away.

Mad Jack dropped the letter-opener and started coughing. As Fred and Freddi came out from the bushes, they ran to Joe’s side. Samantha now stood at the foot of the bridge some way away.

Uncle Joe sniggered as he came into view from behind the willows. “You shouldn’t leave your chloroform lying about, brother. I had to modify some of it, just enough so that Sam would have to be awake to reverse the spell.”

Mad Jack had crashed to the ground, although he wasn’t unconscious, just weakened. “You dog!” he shouted at Uncle Joe. “I absolutely loathe you! You and the _ssshhhllaarg…_ ”

He frowned. Then he tried again. “You _ffllllaarrrb…_ ”

Uncle Joe snickered. “Sam doesn’t know that word.”

All Mad Jack could do was growl softly.

“How do we get Sam back?” Freddi asked Uncle Joe.

“Simple,” Uncle Joe answered and the children could see Daisy standing with her broom at another part of the pool, brushing the top of the water gently, “just throw him in.”

The four children looked rather confused. But Uncle Joe told them, “He’ll be fine. The force of the spell Daisy’s casting should be enough to send my brother back inside his locked dungeon.” He looked over at Daisy, who gave him a thumbs-up.

“Sam’s going to kill us,” Joe muttered as he and Fred lifted their friend’s body up and flung him into the green water.

As soon as Sam’s body touched the water, a bright green light flew from his open mouth and towards the dungeon area. Then he started shrieking.

“The water’s freezing! And my trousers are wet! I want to go home!” He scowled up at them as Daisy came up holding a green pyramid-shaped pendulum.

“It’s Sam all right,” she reassured them, “I’ll send you all back.”

A green mist swirled about the children. The next thing the boys knew, they were back in Joe’s living room, along with Anna.

“Sam, are you okay?” Joe asked him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam took the jacket off, leaving it on the coffee table, “But how I do explain to Mom how I got wet?”

“It is pretty warm outside. You’ll dry up.” Joe teased. Sam glared at him.

“Please don’t do that,” Fred gabbled, “Do – do you remember any of the possession?”

Sam thought about it for a second. Then he answered with, “Not particularly. Especially when it was very strong. I scarcely remember any of today.”

"Why do you think Hedgewing suddenly left?" Joe asked.

Sam didn't know. "Maybe he knew what was going to happen."

Anna took the Book from where it had been deposited on the table and smiled at the boys. “Maybe leaving it in the attic was a good idea.” She giggled as she made her way up the stairs.


End file.
